Since President Donald Trump took office, the U.S. government has used its immigration enforcement powers to crack down on international students and scholars at several American universities who had participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations or criticized Israel over its military action in Gaza.

Trump and other officials have accused protesters and others of being "pro-Hamas," referring to the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Many protesters have said they were speaking out against Israel's actions in the war.

An Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs, known as Dahieh, killed at least three people overnight Tuesday, Lebanese authorities said, after Israel announced its second strike on the country's capital in a fragile four-month truce.

The attack that came without warning at around 3:30 am (0030 GMT) during the Eid al-Fitr Muslim holiday. It came after Israel struck Beirut's southern suburbs, a bastion of Hezbollah support, on Friday after issuing an evacuation warning.

The Israeli military on Monday issued sweeping evacuation orders covering most of Rafah, indicating it could soon launch another major ground operation in the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip.

Israel ended its ceasefire with the Hamas militant group and renewed its air and ground war earlier this month. At the beginning of March it cut off all supplies of food, fuel, medicine and humanitarian aid to the territory's roughly 2 million Palestinians to pressure Hamas to accept changes to the truce agreement.

Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem has said in a speech broadcast overnight that he could not accept continued Israeli attacks on Lebanon, a day after Israel’s first strike on Beirut since a November ceasefire.

"This aggression must end. Israel... bombed Beirut's southern suburbs for the first time since the truce... we cannot allow this to continue," Qassem said in a televised address.

An already fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah appeared to be on shaky ground Friday after rockets fired from Lebanon into northern Israel triggered Israeli airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

The rocket launch from Lebanon was the second in a week, after a lull since December. In both cases, Hezbollah denied being behind the attacks.

President Joseph Aoun said Friday that he condemns the Israeli airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs and any attempt to “bring back the circle of violence” to the country.

Speaking during a news conference in Paris, Aoun said the Lebanese Army is investigating who fired two rockets at north Israel in the morning and “we will not allow anyone to use Lebanon as a launching pad."

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday called an Israeli air strike on a southern suburb of Beirut "unacceptable," saying it was a "violation of the ceasefire" agreed in November.

Such attacks "play into the hands of Hezbollah," Macron told reporters after a meeting with President Joseph Aoun in Paris.

An Israeli airstrike on Friday targeted the Beirut southern suburb of al-Jamous, destroying two buildings, following an Israeli evacuation warning, the first such raid since a November ceasefire largely halted hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.

TV footage showed heavy black smoke billowing from the area, which is densely populated and home to residential buildings and schools.

Lebanon’s state news agency said an Israeli drone strike in the country’s south hit a car, killing two people on Thursday afternoon in the village of Baraasheet.

The National News Agency gave no further details and it was not immediately clear if the two killed were members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

By Bradley J. Cardinale, Penn State; Emmett Duffy, Smithsonian Institution, and Rod Schoonover, Georgetown University

(THE CONVERSATION) When the natural environment is stretched beyond its ability to meet basic human needs for food, clean air, drinkable water and shelter, it is not just a humanitarian concern for the world community. Research shows that these crises are a matter of national security for the U.S. and other countries.