Israel-Gaza-Lebanon updates: Netanyahu calls UN troops Hezbollah 'human shields'

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with his security cabinet on Thursday evening local time.

Israeli media reported that Israel's planned retaliation against Iran for its Oct. 1 ballistic missile attack is among the topics to be discussed.

Netanyahu and other officials have vowed a significant response to the barrage, which Tehran justified as a "legal, rational and legitimate response" to Israeli strikes and targeted killings in Iran and Lebanon.

"Iran made a big mistake tonight -- and it will pay for it," Netanyahu said shortly after Iran's Oct. 1 attack.

This week, Netanyahu said Israel is the "one force in the world that stands in Iran's way to conquest." He added, "It's not only our fight, it's the free world's fight."

Netanyahu spoke with President Joe Biden on Wednesday. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the conversation between the two leaders was "direct" and "productive."

-ABC News' Joe Simonetti

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon said Thursday that Israeli forces fired on three peacekeeper bases in the south of the country, injuring two troops.

"UNIFIL's Naqoura headquarters and nearby positions have been repeatedly hit" amid fighting between Israel Defense Forces and Hezbollah in the area, the mission said in a post to X.

Two peacekeepers were injured at the Naqoura position "after an IDF Merkava tank fired its weapon toward an observation tower," the mission wrote, "directly hitting it and causing them to fall. The injuries are fortunately, this time, not serious, but they remain in hospital."

Elsewhere, UNIFIL said IDF fire on its camp in Labbouneh hit the entrance to a bunker where peacekeepers were sheltering, damaging vehicles and a communications system.

The IDF also fired at and disabled the perimeter-monitoring cameras at Labbouneh, UNIFIL said. An IDF drone was observed above the position, the mission added.

"Any deliberate attack on peacekeepers is a grave violation of international humanitarian law and of Security Council resolution 1701," UNIFIL said, referring to the 2006 U.N. Security Council agreement that sought to end the last major cross-border war between Israel and Hezbollah.

"We are following up with the IDF on these matters," it added.

-ABC News' Ghazi Balkiz

At least 28 Palestinians were killed in a single attack on a school in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

Children are believed to be among the casualties in the attack on the Rufaydah school. The Israel Defense Forces said it was targeting a Hamas "command and control center" in what it called a "precise strike."

The strike occurred in the central region of the devastated strip, where Palestinians from the north have been ordered to evacuate by the IDF.

In the north, Israel is continuing an intense military operation in the Jabalia refugee camp, which is now sealed off and under IDF siege. This is the fourth major IDF operation in Jabalia since the start of the war.

The IDF, meanwhile, said it downed a drone launched into Israel from Gaza, with no injuries reported.

-ABC News' Samy Zyara, Diaa Ostaz, Zoe Magee, Jordana Miller, Victoria Beaule and Joe Simonetti.

Around 25% of Lebanese territory is now under Israel Defense Forces evacuation orders, the United Nations said.

New "displacement orders" are being "issued on a daily basis," the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a situation update, noting that more than 100 villages and urban areas in southern Lebanon are affected.

A total of 1.2 million people across the country have been displaced by Israeli air and ground attacks, the report said, citing OHCHR figures.

-ABC News' Joe Simonetti