♪ william: good evening. i'm william brangham. on the news hour tonight, israel approves a cease-fire deal with hezbollah in lebanon.

move that could end the more than one year of cross-border fighting. even with the prospect of peace, syrian refugees in lebanon are faced with a difficult choice. stay and risk being caught up in more violence or return home to , the country they fled. >> the situation is frightening. we are living on the streets. look at my baby boy. he is sick on the bare ground in the open without a shelter over his head. william: president-elect trump threatens major tariffs on mexico, canada and china. the reification's that could have on businesses and prices for everyday americans. ♪ >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- ♪

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this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. william: welcome to the news hour. for the first time in nearly 14 months, the guns along the israeli-lebanon border are set to fall silent early tomorrow morning. the israeli security cabinet approved of the cease-fire by a 10-1 vote. lebanon's government says it will ensure hezbollah abides by the deal, and at the white house, president biden so the u.s. will monitor the cease-fire. nick schifrin is here with more. nick? nick: in those nearly 14 months,

lebanon says nearly 4500 lebanese have been killed, close to a million displaced. nearly 1/5 of the country. israel says more than 70 have been killed and 60,000 fled their home since hezbollah opened fire on october 8. today's cease-fire requires that within 60 days, has the law -- hezbollah and israel stop all attacks. israeli troops leave lebanon in phases. hezbollah move fighters and weapons north of the otani river. lebanese armed forces a to lebanon's borders eventually numbering 10,000. and the u.s. will chair a mechanism to monitor and judge violations. this afternoon president biden portrayed the deal as lasting. pres. biden: effective at 4:00 tomorrow local time, the a.m. fighting across the lebanese israeli border will end. will end. this is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities. what is left of hezbollah and other terrorist organizations will not be allowed.

nick: israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu said if hezbollah did not live up to the agreement, israel maintained the right to act. >> the lengths of the cease-fire depends on what happens in lebanon. in full cooperation with the united states, we retain complete military freedom of action should hezbollah violate the agreement or attempt to rearm we will strike. ,nick: before the announcement, israel pounded lebanon with a wave of strikes that hit a residential building in central beirut. inside israel, hezbollah launched a barrage of rockets into drones, most of which were intercepted. we turn to rhonda selim and aaron miller from the carnegie endowment. thank you and welcome both of you back to the news hour. let me start with you. do you think the cease-fire agreement will work?

will it stick? aaron: amino ask you, and i'm not trying to trivialize this but ask me in 30 days. the reality is this agreement has been concluded largely because netanyahu wanted it. hezbollah needed it. the question is can the agreement survive its vulnerabilities? how much discretion has the u.s. given to israelis to respond to violations? will lebanese armed forces enforce and deploy in aware that will preempt and prevent hezbollah violations? there is a reasonable chance largely because there is some sense of urgency on the part of netanyahu. there's a lot to do but by no , means can we safely say 30 days from now this deal will have achieved the attraction

that it will last months or longer. rhonda: i totally agree that it is going to encounter severe challenges in the next 60 days. but also both sides. israel and hezbollah have their own reasons want this agreement. like in 2006, the israelis were the ones who pushed for 1701. nick: the security council resolution that ended the war in 2006. rhonda: exactly. today it is the israelis pushing for this because they have realized the military option has exhausted its usefulness in terms of achieving the objective of returning the 70,000 plus israeli citizens to the north. the question is a challenge for israel. will it be able to leverage its military tactical successes into

a durable political settlement? and the challenge for hezbollah and lebanon is what to do with hezbollah weapons and with hezbollah once they move north of the river. nick: let me zoom into one of the main differences between this agreement and the agreement that ended the war in 2006 enshrined by security council 1701. a u.s. chaired mechanism, that's a new feature of this agreement. a mechanism chaired by the united states that will both judge and monitor any kind of violations. how important is it and will it work? aaron: we would not be having this conversation if the united states has not dedicated the resources and will and the skill of the president special representative to do this deal . have created or continued something called the tri-part mechanism which was not a part of 1701 but it was included as a monitoring mechanism.

the u.s. will chair it. it will be i think under the control of centcom. there will be a military representative. u.s. no boots on the ground. the president made that clear. it is possible with the side letter the americans have given to the israelis, have not seen the text and don't know how committing it is, but in fact there may be enough discretion the u.s. has given to the israelis to satisfy them that if there are violations, there will now be a credible monitoring force on the ground in order to enforce it. but again, we should not delude ourselves. this is eight transaction. it is not a transformation. randa makes an excellent point. the idf is exhausted. israel has a small standing army that relies largely on its reserves some of whom have , extended weeks and months. so this was critically important in why the netanyahu government signed up for this. nick: that is part of why israel

felt comfortable with this deal , that the u.s. is inserting itself in any monitoring or judgment. why does lebanon believe that is an ok thing and why is hezbollah willing to accept an agreement that does just that? put the united states as judge and monitor of any future violations. randa: one, they have no other option. and neither lebanon or hezbollah two, is in a position to negotiate. they need the deal. they are going to be facing severe challenges going forward. even after implementation of the deal. they are going to face severe challenges with reconstruction. remember, you have more than one million displaced people. you have entire neighborhoods in southern lebanon that have been decimated. whole neighborhoods in southern suburbs of beirut that have been decimated. 37 villages in south lebanon have been decimated.

these are mostly inhabited by shiite many of whom are core , constituents of hezbollah. they are going to have a severe challenge in helping constituents rebuild their lives. they are going to have a severe challenge in helping themselves rebuild their internal control mechanisms. dealing with their leadership challenges now their leadership , pretty much political and military, has been wiped out. and they are going to have severe challenges answering to the rest of the lebanese about the need for their weapons outside the control of the lebanese state. nick: a little over a minute left. let me ask both of you, a senior u.s. official in announcing this deal said the fact that hezbollah was delinking its strikes into israel isolates hamas and could create momentum toward a cease-fire in gaza. is that a faith that is possible?

aaron: it is a credible analytical point. the calvary is not coming to rescue hamas. at the same time, think about it. netanyahu could do this because it would not string his coalition. the israel-hamas deal is not that way. hamas will demand an asymmetrical number of palestinian prisoners. many who have been convicted and charged with killing israelis. i don't think netanyahu can do that now. it will be fascinated to see whether or not in 60 days the president elect, what equities, pressures and incentives he brings to this to see if he can wrap up gaza, which is critical to what he wants, which is israeli-saudi normalization deal. nick: in the 30 seconds left, do you see progress in gaza under biden or trump? randa: hamas has one strong trump card to extract concessions from israel. these are the hostages.

i don't think prime minister netanyahu is ready to give them concessions they need in return for this trump card. nick: thank you so much to you both. ♪ stephanie: i'm stephanie sy with news hour west. here are the latest headlines. president elect trump has announced new positions within his administration tonight. kevin hassett will lead the national economic council. he served as the chairman of the white house council of economic advisers during trump's previous term. the position does not require a senate confirmation. also tonight, trump announced jamison greer as his pick for u.s. trade representative. in italy, the group of seven

foreign ministers renewed their unwavering support for ukraine. their joint statement comes at the end of two days of talks and less than two months before president-elect trump is set to take office. he has promised to re-evaluate america's support for ukraine. for his part, u.s. secretary of state antony blinken pledged to rush u.s. aid to kyiv, as the biden administation nears its final stretch. sec. blinken: the u.s. is continuing to surge security assistance to bolster ukraine's defenses in the east, and to respond to the escalation by russia. we're determined that ukraine has the money, munitions, and mobilized forces to fight effectively in 2025, or to negotiate, but from a position of strength. stephanie: meantime, both russia and ukraine have escalated their aerial attacks. ukraine says that russia launched 188 drones on targets across the country in a night-time barrage. that is a record for the most in

a single attack, though most were intercepted, and no injuries have been reported. and moscow says it has photographic evidence, seen here, of ukraine firing u.s.-made long-range missiles -- known as atacms -- to strike deep inside its own territory. russia says it's preparing to retaliate. in pakistan, at least six people have died during violent clashes between security forces and protesters who are seeking the release of former prime minister imran khan from prison. security forces fired warning shots and tear gas at demonstrators today as they reached the edges of islamabad's red zone. the area houses the parliament and diplomatic missions. this latest unrest began on sunday and escalated after a rally led by khan's wife -- bushra bibi. officials say she's inciting the violence.

>> there is tear gas being fired. from there, tear gas is being thrown at the police. there will be a severe reaction, the state is showing great patience. bushra bibi has planned it so that we kill people, she wants bloodshed here. stephanie: imran khan addressed his supporters from jail, writing in a post on x, "all protesting pakistanis stay peaceful, united, and stand firm." the popular politician has been in jail since last year, and faces more than 150 criminal cases, which his supporters say are politically-motivated. authorities say only the courts can order his release. a new biden administration proposal would cover the cost of popular weight-loss drugs through medicare or medicaid. that means millions of obese americans would have access to treatments like ozempic or zepbound. the proposal could cost taxpayers as much as $35 million -- over the next decade. $35 billion but advocates say it

would save money by treating the costly health conditions that are tied to obesity. the new rule wouldn't be finalized until after president-elect trump takes office in january. his pick to lead the department of health and human services -- robert f kennedy junior -- is an outspoken opponent of such drugs. walmart is slashing many of its diversity, equity and inclusion policies, known as dei. the company will no longer participate in an index that tracks workplace inclusion for lgbtq+ employees. it will also terminate an equity racial center that was set up after the killing of george floyd. and walmart will no longer consider race and gender when granting contracts to suppliers. the world's largest retailer joins a growing list of corporations that have rolled back their dei amid pressure from conservative activists. still to come on the newshour... racist text messages and neo-nazi incidents arise

following the contentious presidential election. president biden's push to fi federal judicial vacancies before the trump administration takes over. and a new exhibit of french impressionism examines how political upheaval inspired the movement. >> this is the pbs news hour from the david m. rubenstein studio at weta in washington and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. william: president-elect trump is wasting no time when it comes to making good on his promise to impose tariffs on foreign nations to get them to alter their behavior. last night, trump announced he would slap major new tariffs on mexico, canada, and china on his very first day in office. 25% on goods made in canada and mexico, 10% on products made in china. trump said he would do this in response to migrants crossing

into the u.s., as well as the failure to stop the flow of drugs like fentanyl into america. mexico's president reacted today that she would have no choice but to retaliate if trump imposed the tariffs. >> for every tariff, there will be of response in kind until we put at risk our shared enterprises. yes, shared. for instance, among mexico's main exporters to the united states are general motors, stellantis and ford motor company, which arrived in mexico 80 years ago. why impose a tariff that would jeopardize them? such a measure would be unacceptable and would lead to inflation and job losses in both united states and mexico. william: the chinese embassy in the u.s. also responded, saying no one will win a trade war. canadian prime minister justin trudeau said he spoke with trump on the phone later. he said he will hold an emergency meeting with canada's provincial and territorial

leaders. the economic consequences of these tariffs could be enormous, involving numerous industries, including consumer goods and groceries. last year china, mexico and canada bought $1 trillion worth of u.s. exports and they sold nearly $1.5 trillion worth of goods and services to the u.s. so to help us understand more about what is happening, we are joined by economist mary lovely. she is a senior fellow at the peterson institute for international economics. thank you so much for being here. we should say we do not know if trump will go through with this threat as he stated it. but let's say he does for the sake of conversation. mexico, canada and china are enormous trading partners of ours. if these tariffs get slapped on, what does that mean for businesses and consumers? mary: it is great to be here with you.

i would think in a word what it meanis nothing good. these three trading partners are about one third of all our exports and imports. it is an enormous part of the business we do. and clearly if he goes ahead and puts these tariffs on these imports, we are going to see a number of important ramifications, first for businesses and for consumers. for businesses, higher costs, supply chain disruptions and possibly movement of investment out of the united states or away from the united states. for consumers, higher prices at the cash register. as we have shown in previous work, a burden that will fall more heavily on the poor and the middle class. really nothing good coming out of these tariffs. william: which industries, products, kinds of things in particular would these fall most

heavily? mary: if you look at canada, we are going to be looking at crude oil because president-elect trump has not said if he is going to have any carveouts. lumbar, aluminum, even uranium. but of course we always have to put at the top of the list autos. the north american automobile industry, canada, u.s., mexico is fully integrated. some vehicles cross the border more than seven times before they get on to the dealer's lot. that tells you something about how integrated these production processes are and how truly disruptive 25% tariff would be. when we add in the fact that almost surely canada and mexico will retaliate in kind, we are looking at an enormous increase

in the cost of building an automobile in north america. william: what kind of product or supply chain disruption could we see? mary: aside from automobiles, mexico has become a more important supplier of electronics and electrical devices. some of this is investment from china. but it is investment from many u.s. friends and allies. mexico is an important middle country, third country. it is one that has assisted us in moving supply chains away from china. so it has a certain irony that we would place tariffs on imports from mexico when they are a very important player in the move to diversify u.s. supply chains and increase economic resilience. william: your particular expertise is in china. do you sense china would similarly retaliate?

mary: it is a question this time. we saw that china was careful about how it retaliated during the 2017-2018 trade war. it retaliated in kind but moderated. it stopped when the u.s. stopped. right now, china has its own problems. has a weak domestic demand. it has soft employment. it is trying to increase jobs. a trade war with the u.s. is not something it welcomes. i think the chinese will think long and hard about whether they are going to retaliate. they could always choose to retaliate by blocking exports of the things the u.s. is still very dependent on them for. william: trump is threatening these because he wants china and mexico and canada to change their behaviors vis-a-vis migrants and drugs coming in. it is a completely separate conversation as to how much ability those governments have to do those things. but if the economic pain of

these tariffs are as severe as you say, do you think that is going to dampen trump's ardor for them? mary: oh yes. i think the markets today basically shrugged this off. i think there is a big discount on whether he will actually do it given the economic stakes. many people believe this is a form of opening negotiations. trying to force these countries to shoulder more of the burden of border patrol and drug interdiction. it does ignore all the progress we have made in both of these areas. for example, customs and border patrol now focus their fentanyl efforts mainly on the southern border, believing fentanyl is coming in basically across the border often times in motor vehicles as opposed to directly from china. we have also seen u.s.-canada make enormous progress in bringing down illegal migration

through the northern border. a lot of progress is being made. prior to president-elect trump taking office. it is hard to see what more these countries will do. i am sure they will talk to him and try to find ways. but it is one that we have seen before from president trump. we saw it in his first administration. william: mary, thank you for your insights. mary: thank you. ♪ william: after the presidentialn incidents involving neo-nazi marches and racist and hateful messages sent online stoking fear for people in a number of states across the country. stephanie sy has more on this. it is part of our race matters coverage. stephanie: in waterloo, iowa

earlier this month, some residents received flyers advertising the aryan freedom network. that same week in michigan, men waived nazi flags outside a theater production of the diary of anne frank. a small group of neo-nazi men carried swastika flags. since the election, black and latino and lgbtq americans in at least 25 states, including kids and teenagers, have been subjected to racist text messages. the messages told recipients to report to a plantation to pick cotton. destiny, a new yorker was one of , the recipients. >> i truly felt fearful because this was the day after the election. i did not know if the winner of the election gave the authority for people to push hate but also feared for my safety in the sense of who was able to obtain my information and violate my personal space as in contacting

me to send such a thing. who has that type of hate in their heart? stephanie: for more of these incidents and what can be done, i'm joined by margaret wong, president and ceo of the southern poverty law center, an organization that monitors hate and extremism in the u.s. thank you for joining the news hour. as you know the fbi is investigating those texts. as of now, we have no clear sense of who sent them. based on the content, what do you make of these mass texts and what is the intention behind them? margaret: it is clear to us hate and extremist groups are using the election of donald trump as an encouragement to cause fear and anxiety in communities of color and religious communities and in the lgbtq community. because of his use of racist, sexist and other discriminatory rhetoric on the campaign trail, he has essentially encouraged

his followers to spew hateful rhetoric and he has emboldened them to embrace this hateful ideology. stephanie: even if trump has stirred up feelings of racial animus, he also saw gains in this election among latinos and african-americans. with the second trump term, do you expect there will be be more or less tolerance for this kind of hate speech? margaret: i think many people who supported the president elect did so because they share his rhetoric and ideology, but many other people did not. many people voted for him for economic reasons because they are frustrated by the economic situation of the country. they wanted a change from what they were experiencing over the last two years. that is not a mandate to embrace racial hatred or misogyny.

i believe, in fact, as move forward with the incoming administration, more and more people are going to reject that rhetoric and call for a change. stephanie: these mass text messages that were sent out, that seems unprecedented and we were hearing of middle schoolers who received these texts. what can be done about that? margaret: we spoke with students from across the country , including students from the university of alabama, troy university, university of west georgia and alabama state. we spoke with a 13-year-old in dekalb county, georgia and a 14-year-old in rockdale county. it is very clear to us that the texts have been collected and sold, by first from an international company to a domestic company and we have been unable to trace those texts, who purchased the texts

from that u.s. company subsequently. we think internet companies that do this mass text service need better regulations to ensure they can report who is using those numbers they have purchased for these kinds of activities. the fbi is currently investigating this trail of who purchased the texts. stephanie: separately, white supremacist incidents like the ones we have just described have been rising for the last 18 months. what would you attribute that to? margaret: i think again, so much of that was heard on the campaign trail from candidate trump himself. i think that is what spurs so many other people to feel emboldened, to embrace that rhetoric. i think we are going to see more of it for a time. particularly as trump nominates people for senior level positions in his administration who also echo that hateful rhetoric.

we are going to see more people openly embracing it. i will also note those incidents you mentioned where there were people marching or flyering, those people have not sought to be identified. they don't have the courage to identify with that rhetoric they just want to cause the fear such activities usually spur. it is important for people to stand proud in their communities and to reject this hateful rhetoric. stephanie: in this country, hate speech including the display of , swastikas, nazi symbols are protected by the first amendment. what laws do come into play based on the incidents we have described? margaret: there has been violence and of course on the campaign trail there were also incidents of violence. i think that is in fact the intention of these organizations. they hope this rhetoric and these hateful acts will encourage individuals to take action.

that is why it is so important for us to focus on prevention and to speak out against hateful rhetoric whenever we can. we need leaders and communities across the country whether they , are political, whether they are religious, whether they are community leaders to speak out against hateful rhetoric and to reject any kind of that intolerance in their communities. stephanie: margaret wong with the southern poverty law center in montgomery, alabama. thank you. margaret: thank you. ♪ william: in the final weeks of this congress, democrats are making a last-minute push to confirm a number of president biden's judicial nominees. our white house correspondent laura barron lopez has more. laura: president biden has

appointed 221 federal judges during his time in office. with several outstanding appointments, democratic party leaders are racing against the clock to secure confirmations that could shape the judiciary for decades. to understand the impact of the appointments, i am joined by a law professor at georgetown university. thank you for joining us. senate democrats are trying to confirm as many of president biden's judicial nominees as possible before the end of this year, before the end of the 118th congress. where do things stand right now? >> where we are right now is basically senate democrats and republicans have entered into a deal where the senate republicans have largely acquiesced in at least procedural maneuvers that will allow for president biden to fill most of the outstanding district court vacancies that are still out there, this is the lowest level in the federal court system. in exchange for which senate democrats have agreed to drop four circuit court nominees. four judges that would have

served on the intermediate federal courts. the idea is at least two of the four circuit court nominees might not have had majority support from the democrats in the first place. the other two would have taken up a lot of procedural time that might have gotten in the way of confirming the rest of president biden's nominees to the trial courts. laura: how could giving up those four nominees you just mentioned have an impact on the federal judicial system overall especially at the appellate level? stephen: we talk a lot about the supreme court. don't talk a lot about the lower federal courts. there are 13 federal courts of appeals. six judges on them. these nominees could be the difference between whether that court has a majority of democratic appointees, a majority of republican appointees. one of the questions we are going to have to watch is whether for each of those four vacancies, are we going to see any effort from the judges who are creating the vacancies to potentially actually postpone

their retirement and stay on the job until there is another democratic president at some point in the future or are all four of those seats going to be open to be filled by president trump and the republican-controlled senate come january? i don't think we fully know how that is going to play out. laura: during the lame-duck session when donald trump was in his first term, the senate confirmed 14 federal judges and the president-elect's 234 judicial appointments during his first term had a huge impact on a number of issues from abortion access to immigration and student loans. why are these appointments such an important part of a president's legacy? stephen: judicial appointments are often the thing that lives on the longest after a president has left office. recently we had the last judicial appointee by president carter leave the bench. president carter has not been president for 43 years. it has always been this way.

john adams' most signature a -- accomplishment as president was he appointed chief justice john marshall who would serve until 1835. 34 years after adam's presidency. when a president gets so many nominees as president trump did, as president biden has, you get to a point where they can almost single-handedly transform if not the entire judiciary, at least the entire lower federal courts. this has massive long-term effects that go well beyond just an individual president's substantive policies. laura: looking ahead, how do you see federal judges playing a role during donald trump second administration given that impact you are talking about? stephen: for better or for worse, come january 20 when president trump is sworn into office, he is going to have republican control in both chambers of congress. the margin of republican control in the senate is going to be such that he will not have the same constraints he faced in his first term from the likes of senator john mccain.

and so i think that is going to push that much more pressure on courts. whether the judges were appointed by president trump or appointed by president biden or somebody else to be the bulwark to be the last line of defense for those contexts in which president trump and/or his appointees in the defense department, the justice department are pushing the envelope. part of why we have courts. even though the judges are picked by presidents is the idea that because these judges can serve for so long, because they can stay on the court no matter what the president who appointed them thinks of them, they have this independence that at least theoretically allows them to stand up even to the president who appointed them. whether that is going to happen with a second term president trump remains to be seen. at least that is the idea. laura: i want to ask you about some recent news by special counsel jack smith to dismiss both the election interference and classified documents case against president-elect trump

citing the doj's policy that it is unconstitutional to prosecute a sitting president. what president does this decision set for politics being used to beat the legal system? stephen: the promise is in the alternative world where this case went forward, would have the awkward position of president trump being prosecuted by his own justice department. by officials who in theory answer to him. this was in some respects a practical inevitability that once president trump comes to office obviously this case was going away. now it can end on the special counsel's terms as opposed president trump's terms. but i think there is a much deeper problem here which is how we got to this point under the -- this point in the first place. if we look back, it is going to end up being incredibly fitful that in january of 2021, the senate did not have the votes to convict president trump in his second impeachment trial even though it had seven republican

senators who were willing to cross the aisle and vote against president trump. that was a remarkable missed opportunity and i think one of the questions going into president trump's second term is how much of a missed opportunity is that going to turn out to be. some of that is going to depend not just on how president trump handles his second term but on what we have been talking about. the extent to which the courts are both willing and able to stand up to a president trump if he tries to cross the lines again. laura: professor stephen vladek. thank you for your time. stephen: thank you. ♪ william: today's cease-fire deal could bring welcome relief to those caught in the middle of the war between israel and hezbollah, but the more than one year of fighting has already

destroyed many lives and livelihoods including those of the many syrian refugees who are sheltering in lebanon. it has led to a steady flow of those people trying to return to syria, which is east of lebanon. our special correspondent takes us across the border. >> on the road again. more than a decade after the syrian civil war drove ends of refugees into neighboring lebanon, war has come to their new home. israeli airstrikes have left hundreds of thousands of syrian refugees as well as lebanese running for their lives. this is a common scene now. families huddled under one borrowed a blanket children , playing barefoot in the street. many of these families have tried to find places in shelter. they are often turned away. so they sleep here on the streets, in mosque courtyards, in a disused parking lot. look, he tells me. this is where we cook, we eat,

we dress. everything. this woman and her six children have been living here since the israel hezbollah war began. in the first week a strike hit the house next to theirs. >> i was at home with my daughters and all i saw was a plane flying over the building in front of us. in seconds it became fragments. some fell onto our balcony. reporter: they fled north that night. they escaped with their lives but little else. >> the situation is frightening. we are living on the streets. look at my baby boy. he is sick on the bare ground in the open without a shelter over his head. reporter: a young mother with a large family to feed and keep warm and the bitter winter is just beginning. she says she is mentally and physically exhausted and does not know how long she can keep living like this. >> our hearts are burning with fury. i lay awake all night. look at these girls. they have not had a moment of real childhood. our future is lost. reporter: many of these refugees

have spent years building new lives for themselves. finding casual work in the fields, saving up to pay rent rather than living in makeshift tent. forming new communities. that is all gone now. the border in lebanon's valley is the main crossing point for most of the hundreds of thousands of syrians who fled here. now they are moving the other way. nearly half a million have crossed since the war started. some men knowing they won't find work on the other side are sending their families back while they stay on braving the bombs to earn a living. this woman is suddenly all loan. her four small children clinging nervously to her dress as she tries to carry the few bags she can manage, packed in a panic from a home full of belongings. >> i left everything behind. i left my husband behind too. i don't know what might happen to him. it is not safe in syria either but we don't know where else to

go. reporter: this is not the first time she has made such a journey. last time at least she knew her destination was safe. she has been here since the start of the syrian civil war. her children have never seen the syrian city where she is from. now it is their home in beirut's suburbs being targeted. the family barely got out alive before their house was hit. >> everything is gone. war is everywhere. here in syria too. our life is in ruins. i don't know if we will even reach syria or if they will let us in. i swear to you we are so exhausted from constantly moving from one place to another. will it ever end? reporter: even as they flee, the threat of the bombs follows them. this crossing was blasted open by a huge airstrike which israel says was targeting tunnels used for smuggling, but it is the only way back for most. so climbing through the rubble on foot, still they come. people used to be able to drive

across the border here but since the airstrike hit, they're having to navigate this massive crater in the middle of the road, trying to carry everything they have. officially israel has not bombed anyone here because we are in no man's land. no one except the of people hundreds fleeing for their lives. these desperate people don't know what they will find when they get to the syrian side of the border. whether they will be allowed in. whether they will be immediately arrested by the regime. some are trying to cut north to rebel held territory in idlib and west aleppo without being caught. a few families have made it to a perceived enclave. this family walked all the way. they made it but spent all their meager savings in the process. >> we spent seven days on the streets and walked around 200 miles. we are left with nothing now. we don't even have water to drink. reporter: this boy misses his life in lebanon. he was born there. for him, it is home.

>> we were happy in beirut. i used to go to school. i was so happy. reporter: his family and hundreds like them face events -- face immense hardship in return for a tiny measure more of safety. in recent weeks, the assad government has stepped up shelling of committees. some never got the chance to make that trade. they fled the war a decade ago and settled deep in lebanon southern farmlands where they married, found work and had their four little girls. a month ago everything changed. >> we were having breakfast with my father-in-law and brother-in-law. then i don't remember anything. the next day i found myself at the hospital in pain and i could not see. reporter: their entire house was brought down by an israeli airstrike. she and her five-year-old were extremely injured. her daughter lies silent staring at her mother. they both still have several

surgeries to endure. >> i have not seen my other daughters as well. i miss them and i am longing to see them. reporter: but fatima will not see her little girls again. the eight-year-old, three-year-old and six-month-old all died under the rubble of their home. her husband cannot face telling her the truth. he fears she will die of a broken heart. >> i was just out buying bread for breakfast when the airstrike hit the building. i ran home only to find them lying on the ground. my three little girls. all dead. please tell me what to do. i lost them. one was only just born, her mother was still breast-feeding her. she is gone. reporter: their story is that of so many here. they came for safety. they suffered as outcasts. now they face the same fate as if they stayed in syria. a decade delayed. >> we fled syria to seek safety from that war so i could secure a better life for my family.

hope, what is hope? i lost my father, my brother, my kids. i lost hope in everything. reporter: hopeless, homeless. after surviving so much, lebanon's syrian refugees see only despair ahead. for the pbs news hour, i'm layla malone allen in lebanon. ♪ william: impressionism is perhaps the most viewed in most admired movement in art history. now a new exhibition first shown in paris looks back 150 years to its founding moment and to the darkness hidden behind all that beautiful light. senior arts correspondent jeffrey brown visits for arts and culture series canvas.

jeffrey: two paintings from 1870's france. a dramatic historical scene honored as one of the greatest works of its time. and something quite different, an everyday harbor view at sunrise by claude monet. it would become one of the most important works of all time. placed side-by-side as both greeting to the exhibition and provocation. >> the fact that one painting from the summit plummets in terms of art historical fashion and the other is central to every conversation about impressionism is striking. we wanted to put that out there to set up the difference and also the moment. jeffrey: mary morton and kimberly jones are co-curators with two french curators of paris 1874, the impressionist moment. the exhibition is now at washington, d.c.'s national gallery of art. the goal, to look a new at an

inflection point in art history. the birth of modern painting. >> from the start, we wanted to dig into the impressionist mythology. people think they know what impressionism is but what they think of as impressionism comes at a later date. the fact we call this the impressionist moment is a bit of a misleading notion because in the moment they failed. clearly there was enough of a success, a germ of an idea of how to move forward. jeffrey: this is an exhibition about exhibitions. two of them held at the same time in paris in 1874. here we see works from each. the official salon, the most prestigious art event of the day, defining taste and making careers. but strictly controlled, conservative in its judgments and proper styles and subjects. and a much smaller, much less attended independent exhibition organized by a group that included then little-known

artists such as dégas renoir, , cezanne and monet. the name they used designated not a revolt but a corporate structure. >> it was in essence a financial arrangement that these artists committed to. they had to pay dues. they would split proceeds from sales. unfortunately there were not many sales. it was nice successful venture. jeffrey: in fact, this so-called first impressionist show was something of a hodgepodge. what was this etching of a dog doing here? and the line between the salon and the independent show juxtaposed here was not always clear. art history, we see, is rarely about clean breaks. it was an art critic who first used the term impressionism. he meant it as a criticism. yet, something new was happening , capturing light more than fine detail. the ever-changing impression rather than the fixed moment in time. the every day rather than grand

history or mythology. but where it came from, that is the lesser-known story told here. >> they did an amazing job. jeffrey: sebastian is a pulitzer prize-winning art critic for the washington post and author of the new book, "paris in ruins: love, war and the birth of impressionism." >> we have this idea of impressionism as an art form with pretty pictures, gorgeous landscapes. >> which they are. >> they are beautiful paintings. tremendous serenity and sunlight. almost pleasure and joy that comes off them. to me, it was interesting to register that and to put that together with the fact that all of them main figures in impressionism and the society they were part of had gone through a tremendous trauma. jeffrey: just three years before these exhibitions, paris was in ruins after a disastrous war and humiliating defeat by germany and the short-lived paris

commune, a revolutionary government that took control of the city before being brutally suppressed by french troops who killed some 15,000 to 20,000 of their own countrymen in a bloody week of streetfighting. captured by manet in the small lithograph. >> showing us what happened on the streets of paris. what happened was so shocking people did not want to they could but it. jeffrey: neither did the artists want to show it. he points to the example of the only woman on the independent exhibition. >> it was a world of children, interiors and gardens and sometimes landscapes. she painted all of these subjects with an incredibly delicate feeling for fugitive effects of light. she lived through the siege of paris. she had been reduced to starvation and was lucky to escape with her life. i think it is poignant she was interested in painting pictures that were all about that fragility and those fugitive

effects of light and life itself. >> how you process trauma, sometimes you lean into it and sometimes you want to move past it. particularly with the independence, part of what they are doing is they are deciding to look forward. a lot of their landscapes in particular deal with themes of renewal and rejuvenation. the spring after the long dark winter. jeffrey: in fact, many were scenes of recent horror. now of newly planted saplings. as in alfred sicily's apple trees in flower. >> this is a site that has suffered. is going through its own trauma. you have this mingling of the old and the replanted trees. apple trees will take many years before they will bear fruit. so it is not just a pretty picture. it is about the country, the family, the community working to rebuild the present for the future. jeffrey: the new for the country

and for art. there would be seven more impressionist exhibitions over the coming years as the movement coalesced and expanded into the form the world came to know. while some artists including , monet and pissarro experienced success in their lifetimes, recognition for sicily and others came only after their deaths. for the pbs news hour, i'm jeffrey brown at the national gallery of art in washington, d.c. ♪ william: and that is the news hour for tonight. i'm william brangham. on behalf of the entire news hour team,hank you so much for joining us. >> major funding for the pbs news hour has been provided by -- >> in 1995, two friends set out to make wireless coverage accessible to all. with no long-term contracts,

nationwide coverage and 100 percent u.s.-based customer support. consumer cellular. freedom calls. ♪ >> carnegie corporation of new york. working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy and peace. more information at carnegie.org. and with the ongoing support of these institutions. this program was made possible the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ >> this is "the pbs newshour" from the david m. rubenstein studio in washington, and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university.

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