INTERNACIONAL
As Hezbollah rejects truce, families on Israel’s northern border describe life under fire
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Two days after another ceasefire was announced between Israel and U.S. terrorist designated group Hezbollah, Yulia Bar-Dan was standing outside her temporary home in Kibbutz Manara in northern Israel when the familiar sound of an interceptor echoed overhead.
«There will probably be another siren soon,» she told Fox News Digital.
Minutes later, an alert appeared on her phone warning residents in northern Israel to take shelter.
For Bar-Dan, the scene captured the reality of life on Israel’s northern border nearly two years after Hezbollah joined the war against Israel on Oct. 8, 2023.
After Hezbollah entered the recent war in support of Iran, Washington launched a diplomatic effort aimed at turning the ceasefire into a broader arrangement for Lebanon.
ISRAEL OPENS FIRE IN LEBANON AT ‘SUSPECTS’ ALLEGEDLY VIOLATING TRUCE, WHICH HAS ENTERED ITS SECOND DAY
Multiple rounds of talks between Israeli and Lebanese officials have taken place in Washington, and President Donald Trump repeatedly has announced ceasefire understandings aimed at restoring calm along the border. Residents of communities like Manara, Israel, say the rockets, drones and uncertainty never really stopped.
An Israeli soldier stands near military vehicles on the second day of the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah near the Israel-Lebanon border on Nov. 28. (Stoyan Nenov/Reuters)
«A ceasefire is supposed to be on both sides,» she said. «Not that Hezbollah keeps shooting at us and we just keep absorbing it.»
When Fox News Digital first spoke to Bar-Dan in December 2024 during the war, she and her husband had fled Manara, Israel, with their three children and were living out of a single hotel room, unsure whether they would ever return home.
Today, roughly 200 of the kibbutz’s 280 residents have returned, Bar-Dan said. But many, including Bar-Dan’s family, still cannot live in their original homes because of war damage.
Yulia Bar-Dan and her husband are pictured during quieter times at Kibbutz Manara, Israel. (Yulia Bar-Dan)
Despite repeated ceasefire announcements, residents say normal life remains elusive.
«There hasn’t really been a routine or a quiet day since February,» she said.
Schools officially reopened in early June, but Bar-Dan decided not to send her children.
«They take the bus to school,» she said. «What if there’s a siren on the way? I can’t take that chance.»
ISRAEL DESTROYS HEZBOLLAH’S ‘LARGEST PRECISION-GUIDED MISSILES MANUFACTURING SITE’ AS GROUP VOWS TO ‘FIGHT’
Hezbollah terrorists holding rifles are shown in this image. (Fadel Itani/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Her frustration is not directed at Hezbollah alone.
Like many residents interviewed by Fox News Digital, Bar-Dan says there is a growing disconnect between the reality experienced on the border and the reality described by politicians.
«It doesn’t really matter where the decisions are being made,» she said. «The decisions just need to match reality. Right now there is a decision, but the reality is completely different.»
A year and a half after most of Manara’s residents were evacuated amid fears of a Hezbollah invasion, community leader Yochai Wolfin says residents have developed their own name for the current situation.
«We call it ‘the ceasefire war,’» he said.
The phrase has become common in the community.
First came a year and a half of evacuation. Then came the return home. Then came what Wolfin describes as three months of «fire within a ceasefire.»
The uncertainty has become part of daily life.
Children study inside shelters. Parts of the kibbutz still lack protected rooms. Construction projects remain unfinished because contractors are reluctant to work so close to the border.
He said many residents increasingly feel that the decisions determining their future are being made far from the communities that bear the consequences.
ISRAEL WARNS IT WILL GO AFTER LEBANON DIRECTLY IF CEASE-FIRE WITH HEZBOLLAH COLLAPSES
A Lebanese man holds a Hezbollah flag near the border with Israel in the southern Lebanese village of Hula on Dec. 20, 2020. (Jalaa Marey/AFP)
«Who knows what tomorrow will bring?» Wolfin said. «We know who is calling the shots. We saw it a few days ago when Trump announced another ceasefire. But for us, the reality on the ground hasn’t changed.»
The comments come as Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem warned Thursday that northern Israel would remain unsafe as long as Israeli strikes continue in Lebanon, according to Reuters.
In a written statement broadcast on June 4, 2026, Qassem condemned the Washington-mediated framework as «absurd, humiliating, and insulting,» calling it a roadmap for surrender.
For residents of Israel’s northern border communities, the statements reinforced what many say they have been experiencing for months: a ceasefire that exists on paper but not in daily life.
Naor Shamia, who heads Manara’s emergency response team, says residents increasingly worry that temporary emergency measures are becoming permanent.
«The fear isn’t today,» he said. «The fear is that this becomes years. We are in a deadlock.»
Across the border region, similar concerns are heard.
Fire burns at Kibbutz Manara following another attack. (Kibbutz Manara)
In the community of Adamit, resident Yael Cohen-Arazi described the contrast between the beauty surrounding her and the reality of living under constant threat.
«Every morning I wake up and think I’m living in paradise,» she said in footage provided to Fox News Digital by the Israeli news agency TPS-IL. «Then there are the explosions that shake my soul.»
Her children, she said, have spent so much of their lives under fire that they no longer know what normal looks like.
«I tell them there are children who don’t live like this,» she said.
Back in Manara, Israel, another alert interrupted the afternoon.
Bar-Dan says she is not angry anymore. Mostly, she is tired and sad.
«I feel bad for the soldiers,» she said. «Every day there is another casualty, and there is still no solution.»
Yet she insists she is staying.
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Members of the Kibbutz Manara rapid response unit respond to Hezbollah rocket attacks on Kibbutz Manara. (Kibbutz Manara)
«This is our home,» she said. «Someone has to live on the borders of this country.»
Then another explosion sounded in the distance.
israel, bombings, war with iran, conflicts, lebanon
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Pro-Israel college students who have watched socialism and anti-Israel activism gain ground on campus say the same political currents are now colliding with the Democratic Party — and the backlash is pushing some young Jewish voters to the right.
«Even before the craziness of the post-October 7 campus climate, it was already an underlying sense of, ‘America is bad and we’re gonna learn about that,’» University of Michigan rising senior Addison Stone told Fox News Digital.
Speaking at the Israel on Campus Coalition’s national summit in Washington this week, students said political currents they have watched spread on college campuses are increasingly surfacing in Democratic politics, particularly as the party’s progressive wing gains ground and clashes deepen over Israel.
Dylan Goldman, a rising senior at UC Berkeley, identified himself as «left leaning» and told Fox News Digital that Democratic lawmakers welcoming the popular socialist candidates – who overwhelmingly hold hostile postures toward Israel – are making a «really poor move.»
DEMOCRATS LURE ‘POLITICALLY HOMELESS’ GEN Z TOWARD SOCIALISM — A COUNTERATTACK IS TAKING SHAPE
Israeli pop star Harel Skaat performs for students at the 2026 ICC National Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C. (Fox News Digital)
«Jewish Democrats who are not single-issue voters… now feel so alienated by our own party that it’s pushing us conservative. It’s pushing to go further right,» said Goldman.
Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive whose campaign drew support from the democratic socialist movement, won Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary Tuesday, adding to a string of victories for left-wing candidates challenging the Democratic establishment as the party battles for control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.
The conference brought hundreds of pro-Israel students to Washington for advocacy training, networking and discussions on supporting Israel, combating antisemitism and strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship on college campuses.
«The academics don’t help, but they’re sort of helping indoctrinate the next generation and the next generation with the combination of learning about that in classes and going on social media and seeing it and the DSA trying to make everything cool with communism,» Stone said. «You’re really seeing the outcome of that on college campuses where they’re burning both American and Israeli flags.»
JEWISH MICHIGAN DEMOCRATS ADMIT THEY WILL VOTE REPUBLICAN IF ABDUL EL-SAYED BECOMES NOMINEE
Student at a pro-Israel conference spoke with Fox News Digital about the ideologies finding support on college campuses. (Ashley DiMella/Fox News Digital)
As those political divisions play out nationally, organizers at the summit said Jewish students are still confronting the campus hostility that helped bring many of them to Washington.
«What’s happening to Jewish students on American campuses should alarm every American,» Israel on Campus Coalition CEO Jacob Baime told Fox News Digital. «The hostility is out in the open now: mobs on the quad, intimidation in the classroom, and harassment online. But here’s what the mob didn’t count on: this generation isn’t backing down.»
«These students are the proudest, toughest, most organized pro-Israel cohort we have ever seen. This week we brought more than 1000 campus leaders to Washington to train and equip them with the skills they need to go back to campus ready to fight for what they believe in,» he added.
FETTERMAN WINS PRAISE FOR ‘GUTS’ AFTER GOING TOE-TO-TOE WITH JON STEWART OVER ISRAEL SUPPORT
Israeli pop star Harel Skaat performs for students at the 2026 ICC National Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C. (Fox News Digital)
Fetterman, who spoke at the Israel on Campus Coalition’s flagship event, said the Democratic Party’s shifting posture toward Israel and the Jewish community is becoming increasingly consequential.
His support for Israel has repeatedly put him at odds with members of his own party, including over the broader conflict in the Middle East and his backing of President Donald Trump’s strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
«I think I was the only Democrat to support the Trump administration to bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities,» Fetterman told Fox News Digital. «If you don’t want them to acquire a nuclear bomb, it’s pretty reasonable to bomb their nuclear facilities.»
Fetterman argued the threat extends beyond Israel, casting the confrontation with Iran as a larger battle over American values and the West’s role in the region.
«The problem is Iran. That’s the problem,» he said, later adding, «I’m proud to stand for America, civilization, democracy, and Israel is our special ally that represents all of that in that region.»
campus radicals, socialism, gen z, campus controversy, democratic party, culture opinion, israel
INTERNACIONAL
Fiscalía pide 396 años de prisión para extesorero del Banco Nacional de Costa Rica acusado de sustraer ₡3,293 millones (USD 7.3 millones)
El juicio contra Ricardo Olivas Valle, extesorero del Banco Nacional de Costa Rica (BNCR), entró en su etapa final con la solicitud de la Fiscalía de una condena que suma 396 años de prisión por el supuesto desfalco de ₡3,293 millones (USD 7.3 millones) sustraídos de las bóvedas de la sede central de la entidad, en San José.
La Fiscalía Adjunta de Probidad, Transparencia y Anticorrupción (Fapta) inició la presentación de sus conclusiones ante el Tribunal Penal, donde expondrá por qué considera que el exfuncionario es responsable de los hechos que se le atribuyen y solicitará formalmente la pena de cárcel.
Olivas Valle enfrenta una acusación por 33 delitos de peculado, uno por cada extracción de dinero que, según el Ministerio Público, habría realizado entre 2021 y 2023 aprovechando los últimos minutos de la jornada laboral y los momentos de menor vigilancia dentro de la institución.
De acuerdo con la investigación, las sustracciones ocurrían principalmente entre las 4:16 p. m. y las 5:29 p. m., cuando el movimiento dentro de las instalaciones disminuía. La Fiscalía sostiene que el extesorero aprovechaba supuestos fallos en los controles internos para retirar millones de colones de las bóvedas.
Durante el juicio fueron analizadas decenas de grabaciones de seguridad que, según la acusación, muestran al exfuncionario colocando fajos de billetes en sobres de manila amarillos para luego salir de la entidad pasando por los controles de seguridad.
El caso fue denominado “Gallo Tapado” por el Organismo de Investigación Judicial (OIJ) y la Fiscalía debido al presunto mecanismo utilizado para ocultar el origen del dinero.
Según la tesis acusatoria, Olivas habría utilizado parte de los fondos sustraídos para comprar diariamente grandes cantidades de fracciones y billetes de lotería de la Junta de Protección Social (JPS). Cuando resultaba ganador, el dinero era depositado en sus cuentas bancarias, lo que habría permitido introducir los recursos al sistema financiero aparentando que provenían de una fuente legítima.
Durante los allanamientos realizados en su vivienda, las autoridades encontraron cerca de 3,000 fracciones de lotería, como parte de las evidencias incorporadas al expediente judicial.
El Ministerio Público sostiene que la prueba presentada durante el debate demuestra la participación del exfuncionario en las extracciones de dinero y solicitó una condena acumulada de 396 años.
Sin embargo, aunque la sumatoria de penas supera ampliamente la normativa nacional, la eventual sentencia deberá ajustarse al límite máximo establecido por la legislación costarricense, que actualmente es de 36 años de prisión.
Además de la Fiscalía, en el proceso participan como partes acusadoras la Procuraduría General de la República y el Banco Nacional, institución que reclama los recursos supuestamente sustraídos.
Durante su declaración ante el Tribunal, Olivas Valle reconoció que tuvo problemas relacionados con los juegos de azar, aunque afirmó que su adicción estaba limitada a la compra de lotería.
“Tuve adicción a los juegos, en algún momento, a la lotería solamente”, declaró el exfuncionario, quien aseguró que tras ingresar a prisión en 2023 su problema estaba relacionado únicamente con “ganas de jugar”.
El extesorero negó que su conducta estuviera vinculada con otros tipos de apuestas y afirmó que compraba principalmente tiempos y monazos, mientras que la lotería la adquiría en menor cantidad.
La investigación también reveló presuntas debilidades en los mecanismos de supervisión interna del Banco Nacional.
Según la acusación, desde 2019 no se realizaban arqueos físicos exhaustivos en las bóvedas, situación que habría permitido que las supuestas sustracciones continuaran durante varios años sin ser detectadas.
Además de Olivas Valle, otras personas fueron incluidas en investigaciones separadas por posibles omisiones, incumplimiento de deberes o encubrimiento. Entre ellas figuran supervisores, contadores, personal de seguridad y exdirectivos jurídicos de la entidad.
El juicio continuará con la etapa de conclusiones de las partes y posteriormente el Tribunal Penal deberá definir la responsabilidad del exfuncionario y la eventual sentencia.
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