Kat Lonsdorff

Israel has demolished more than 40,000 homes in the south, according to Lebanese officials, taking over whole villages to create what it calls a security buffer zone to keep Hezbollah from firing rockets into Israel.

The Lebanese government has been asking for these talks for weeks, and Israel didn't take them up on it until last week, after the U.S.

agreed to a ceasefire with Iran.

Hezbollah has urged the Lebanese government to cancel the talks.

Meanwhile, people in Lebanon tell NPR they're exhausted by the war, but are skeptical that peace with Israel is possible.

Israel won't agree to any deal unless there's a tangible plan with the Lebanese government for disarming Hezbollah, a longstanding Israeli demand.

But Hezbollah has rearmed regardless, firing near-constant rockets into northern Israel during this war.

If talks dissolve, Israel says it's prepared to remain occupying southern Lebanon for many months, even years.

Kat Lonsdorff, NPR News, Beirut.

Israel says that it will have full control of the Lebanese town of Ben Shabil, quote, within days.

The town has become the center of intense fighting.

It's part of land that Israel says it's seizing from Lebanon to create what it calls a buffer zone so Hezbollah can't fire rockets into Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz both joined invading troops inside Lebanon over the weekend, where Katz said Israel would remove the threat, quote, just as we did in Gaza.

including demolishing homes so they can't become, quote, terror outposts.

Lebanon says nearly 40,000 houses have been destroyed or heavily damaged, mainly in the south, in the past five weeks.

Kat Lonsdorff, NPR News, Beirut.

NPR's Kat Lonsdorff has more.

ICE's budget has skyrocketed during President Trump's second term, and the administration is taking the unprecedented step of aggregating Americans' personal data and making it more accessible to the agency.

NPR dug through court records and interviewed people to better understand the extensive surveillance apparatus DHS has been building.

Immigration lawyers said their clients had been subjected to facial recognition technology.