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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Hurst.

Israel and Hezbollah engaged in some of the heaviest cross-border fighting in months today.

Leaders on both sides say they did significant damage to military sites across their shared

border.

And Pierce Carey-Con reports the region had been bracing for an escalation following

Israel's killing of a top Hezbollah commander last month.

Israeli fighter jets hit dozens of targets across the border in Lebanon before dawn in what it called a preemptive

strike to thwart an imminent attack by Hezbollah.

The Iranian-backed militants then fired what they said were hundreds of rockets into Israel.

Both sides claimed their cross-border attacks were successful.

Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nas Rala said late Sunday that this was, quote,

the first phase of its response to Israel's

killing of one of its top commanders last month for their action might be warranted

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that quote what happened today is not the final word.

The region had been bracing for Hezbollah's retaliatory strike for weeks.

It came as the latest ceasefire talks over the war in Gaza wrapped up in Cairo.

Kerry Khan, NPR News, Tel Aviv.

The Harris campaign is setting new fundraising records.

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