Monday Briefing: A Tense Wait in Israel

Amid fears of a broadening conflict, a number of international airlines suspended flights to and from Israel pending expected retaliation against the country by Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah. Britain, Canada, France and the U.S. were among the countries urging their citizens to leave Lebanon immediately.

The move followed the killings earlier in the week of a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut and Hamas’s political leader in Tehran. Tens of thousands of Israelis are unable to come home, according to an Israeli official, adding to the sense that the country was no longer in control of its own fate and had no clear plan for quieting its many conflicts. Here’s the latest.

Clashes continued throughout the weekend. Israel and Hezbollah each said yesterday that they had fired at targets in the other’s territory. An Israeli airstrike on a school functioning as a shelter in Gaza City killed at least 30 people and injured dozens more, according to the Palestinian emergency response agency in Gaza and Palestinian news outlets.

Most of the victims were women and children, a spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defense said. The attack was the third on a school in the last four days. Israel said it had targeted Hamas “command and control centers.”

A look ahead: Israel’s war against Hamas is the deadliest that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have ever faced. But Hamas has remained operational, recruited new fighters in Gaza and beyond and re-emerged in areas that Israel had driven the group out of months before. Survival could provide a symbolic victory that may allow Hamas to emerge politically stronger.