‘Unprecedented’ level of military engagement: Israel, Hezbollah ‘locked into process of escalation’

‘Unprecedented’ level of military engagement: Israel, Hezbollah ‘locked into process of escalation’

[Music] welcome to the program Israel’s foreign minister Israel Catz has warned the country is close to a decision on an allout war against Hezbollah in Lebanon he made those comments on the platform X as Israel’s military generals said they had signed off on plans for an offensive in Lebanon now hours earlier Hezbollah published Drone footage reportedly filmed over the Israeli city of Hy with the details here’s Charlotte Hughes this video was allegedly taken by a Hezbollah drone the Lebanese militant group claims the undated footage shows the Israeli Port of hia in strategic military energy and civilian infrastructure the video prompted a furious reaction from the Israeli foreign minister who said that hezbollah’s leader had threatened to attack Hy’s ports Israel cats warned the group that it would be destroyed if an allout War were to occur between the two this is the Israeli Army said on social media that plans for an offensive in Lebanon had been approved by senior officers as part of the situational assessment operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon were approved and validated and decisions were taken on the continuation of increasing the Readiness of troops in the field meanwhile Amos Hawkin Joe Biden’s Envoy is in the region to try to ease tensions at the Israeli Lebanese border crossb clashes with Hezbollah have intensified in recent weeks the conversations that I had here today in beut and the ones that I had yesterday in Israel both are being conducted because the situation is serious we have seen an escalation over the last few weeks and what President Biden wants to do is to avoid a further escalation to a greater War claiming to act in support of its Ally Hamas as well as gazans Hezbollah started trading fire with Israel a day after the Hamas attacks on October the 7th since then the violence has killed at least 473 people in Lebanon a majority of them Fighters but also dozens of civilians according to Israeli authorities at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed in Northern Israel well for some analysis on this story I’m very pleased to be joined now on the program by filipo dioni he’s a Middle East expert at the University of Bristol good afternoon to you sir thanks for joining us today look first of all it’s long been an assumption of analysts that neither Hezbollah nor Israel want a fullscale war but in the light of what we saw in that report there both the comments by Israel’s foreign minister that a decision on an allout conflict is close and Hezbollah apparently flying that drone over hyper is that calculation do you think now changing I think the calculation on the grounds remain more or less the same um I think um neither Israel nor Hezbollah are interested in a direct confrontation in a larger scale than what they are already doing but the reality is that they’re locked into a process of escalation uh that keeps going uh upwards and risk of going out of control and therefore creating the condition uh for a larger War uh in that sense um what I think we saw already since the beginning of the conflict is a war on two level there is the war on the ground and then there is also an information War a war that is exchanged through declarations and threats and accusations from both sides hopefully this latest episode is still the kind of episode that takes place at the information level with Hezbollah showing and showing off uh its uh aial capacity to access Israeli uh airspace and uh uh acquire information on the ground to uh with a level of detail that uh it was unexpected and therefore Israel retaliating to that kind of uh threat uh with the presentation of possible plans of attack again as the Declarations that you’ve shown in your report uh show these are declaration they uh indicate uh the possibility and the Readiness of Israel to undertake these plans but they are not yet a reality on the ground and uh my hope is that it will remain only a threat a verbal threat and not a reality that will uh change the ground in uh in the near future at least and let’s talk about some of the specifics then on that apparent Hezbollah drone flight over the Israeli city of Hyer just technically I mean how did that happen how was the Drone able to fly what seems to be pretty low over Israeli airspace and not be detected by a very sophisticated Israeli defense system this is this is the question that everyone is asking at this point uh Israel has the latest technology the most advanced military capacity in the region and the fact that Hezbollah has been able to acquire that footage in one way or another in fact shows that there are holes in this defense system and that esbah might be capable of uh doing things that Israel itself may not even expect uh in reality and that’s been part of the game since the beginning hisb has been progressively showing off greater military capacity it has shown capacity to uh fight using uh air to surface missiles as well it has been showing capacity to use missiles that mount a camera on and therefore capable of spreading propaganda to its own advantage and therefore you know again this is uh something that indicates the fact that this conflict should escalate to even to an allout War uh will have consequences that we cannot predict simply because we don’t know exactly what hisb is capable of we know its capability is much greater than amas for sure uh but we don’t know exactly you know again what this conflict may lead to and on the Israeli side I I appreciate what you were saying in your first response that we need to see this really as a sort of part of an information War rhetoric almost from both sides rather than an indication that an actual fullscale war is imminent but if I can just you know ask you about some of the language here the Israeli Army saying plans for an offensive in Lebanon have been approved and validated I mean that’s quite specific the Israeli Army not normally currying in sort of rhetoric around something like that does that kind of language concern you I think it’s it’s raising the tension up again a notch significantly and uh again we saw that language uh going up and down since uh the beginning of this War uh but again we are at this point uh uh seeing a level uh of Engagement in this conflict that is unprecedented uh we saw also that this morning Israel have has carried out massive attacks in southern Lebanon and near Tire as well using its own Air Force meaning again that you know those are not only words that can actually be uh substantiated by facts on the ground by actual military activity so yes it’s concerning uh but then again there are also other declarations that have been given in the past there is part of Israeli military leadership that doesn’t see uh the purpose the you know the the the um interest for Israel to engaging in an allout war with Hezbollah let us not forget that Israel has already fought a long war with Hezbollah in the past which ended in 2000 with the withdrawal of Israeli forces then resumed for a month in 2006 and the experience of Israel in this country has always been very negative in fact devastating for Israel itself so they may have learned the lesson that engagement with Lebanon may not be convenient at the Strategic level what is Israel going to get out of a war uh with Hezbollah and Lebanon at this point is hard to imagine it will be enormously costly at the human at an economic level it will produce further insecurity for Israel rather than creating greater insecurity and probably will not achieve any meaningful objective in the short term but probably also in the medium to long term and just finally these tensions of course coming as the US Envoy Amos hin has been in both Lebanon and in Israel in recent days what is the American strategy right now and is there any evidence that it’s working no I’m afraid the evidence that we have so far is that this strategy has not been working has been uh characterized by uh partisanship towards Israel uh um Asin has previously demonstrated being a capable Diplomat and has managed to solve other issues but in this respect it seems like the situation is stuck uh What uh initially was uh the strategy was uh asking Hezbollah and Lebanon to basically Implement fully un Security Council resolution 1701 which meant also the withdrawal uh or at least partial withdrawal of his Bas weapons north of the Lani river which it means uh north of the um Israeli Lebanese uh border and then create a buffering Zone which would have created greater security through the deployment greater deployment of the Lebanese armed forces and perhaps also a greater deployment of the unifil mission the peacekeeping mission that is operating in South Lebanon that process has not led to an agreement the latest request was basically trying to go to esbah and ask to esbah to uh um um Force Hamas to accept a ceas fire if a SE fire is reached between Hamas and Israel in Gaza hisbah stance is that it will also suspend its hostilities towards Israel but that request rather than being uh um realized uh by hisb has been instead met by the publication of this video yesterday which in fact has increased uh tension and has further exacerbated the sense of insecurity of Israel and therefore triggered the reaction that we saw today with that declaration but also with the operation on the ground in Lebanon filipo dioni great to get your perspective sir thanks very much thank you

An escalating cross-border tit-for-tat between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah raised fears Wednesday of a full-blown war, but experts are divided on the prospect of a wider conflict. Are Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah on the brink of war? For in-depth analysis and a deeper perspective on the rapidly escalating conflict, FRANCE 24’s Nadia Massih is joined by Dr Filippo Dionigi, senior lecturer in Politics/International Relations with regional expertise on the Middle East with a focus on Lebanon, Syrian refugees and Islamist movements such as Hezbollah.

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