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

today approved a plan to expand settlements on the Occupy Golan Heights. Prime Minister Benjamin

Netanyahu said in a statement that strengthening the Golan Heights means strengthening Israel

and is especially important at this time. Since the Assad regime was

toppled in Syria, Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes across that country and carried out

incursions past the Golan Heights to the previously demilitarized zone. Meanwhile, Israel has closed

its embassy in Dublin over what it calls the anti-Israel policy of the Irish government as relations deteriorate

over the war in Gaza. And the Israeli military has started withdrawing from parts of southern Lebanon

as part of a ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah. It's supposed to end the last deadly conflict,

which started last October between the two. But as MPAs Emily Fang reports,

Israeli strikes continue to hit Lebanon. Israel's military said in a statement that it had destroyed

some 300 sites in the past week belonging to Hezbollah, the paramilitary organization that is

influential in Lebanon. It also said it had, quote, eliminated many terrorists in operations,

especially around a Lebanese town

called Hiam. Hiam is also where the Lebanese military started redeploying this past week as part of

the ceasefire agreement signed in late November. Lebanon's defense minister accused Israel of violating

the ceasefire, and the Lebanese health ministry said one person had been killed by an Israeli drone in Hiam the day after the Lebanese army moved in.

Emily Fang and Pierr News, Beirut, Lebanon.

President-elect Donald Trump's pick to head the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert of Kennedy Jr. is due on Capitol Hill this week to meet with senators.

Kennedy, as an independent presidential candidate this year, ran on an anti-vaccine campaign, and his personal

lawyer had reportedly filed suit to get the FDA to revoke the polio vaccine. That has gotten

...