Exploding communication devices: What impact on Hezbollah?

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00:00me here on set is Ketavan Ghorjasdani from our international affairs desk. Ketavan, these blasts,

00:04I mean, they've left thousands of people wounded now. Some have got missing eyes, missing hands,

00:08not to mention the damage to Hezbollah's communications network. Just put it into

00:13perspective. What do you think the impact is on Hezbollah?

00:16Well, there are really two questions. One is the impact on the sort of

00:21manpower and command structure of Hezbollah. You mentioned the thousands of people injured,

00:27several dozens of dead. But it's still unclear exactly who those victims were and how far up

00:36the chain of Hezbollah command they are. Are there any of the sort of higher commanders?

00:42Are they just fighters? Are there fighters and civilians? We know at least that there were

00:47two children involved. So that is a question. But even if just for the sake of argument,

00:54we said that all of the people that were impacted by these attacks were members of Hezbollah,

01:00that is still a sliver of what Hezbollah represents. It is considered by Western

01:07intelligence that they have 45,000 to 50,000 fighters. Hezbollah says that they have about

01:13100,000. But either number is huge compared to the couple of thousands that were impacted by

01:20these explosions. So it's not going to necessarily make a dent in that command structure. And then

01:26there's also just the sheer power of the weaponry of Hezbollah. Even if they lose some fighters,

01:33they have this huge arsenal of weapons and missiles, rockets, and especially some very

01:40advanced systems that some say could be a problem for Israel, even with the Iron Dome system.

01:47And then there's the question of the operational impact. And you mentioned how this, of course,

01:54was a blow to their communication system. And it is definitely a huge blow. And it is a blow

01:59because Hezbollah had already sort of changed its communication system because of the recent

02:07killings of some of the higher commanders. The leaders of Hezbollah had said, stop with the

02:12cell phones. They are too easily tracked by Israeli services. They decided to move to something

02:18a little bit more analog, like the pagers, that were supposed to be less trackable. But clearly,

02:25they were a security risk. And so now, no more cell phones, no more pagers, no more walkie-talkies.

02:32So the question is, how do they continue communicating? This is going to be definitely

02:37a huge disruption in the organisation of Hezbollah, how they communicate, how they plan ahead.

02:44And there's also the question that we saw in that report as to how far does the infiltration

02:51of the Israeli services, if that is indeed what happened there, how far does it go?

02:56There's going to be a sense of a little bit of paranoia among Hezbollah members to know how did

03:03they get this close and how did we not see this coming? Of course, we're all waiting to hear

03:07exactly what Hassan Nasrallah says in a few hours' time. But the biggest fear, I suppose,

03:12now is about escalation. And what happened over the last few days does seem to have the analysts

03:16particularly worried. Absolutely. And there is going to be that speech. And we'll see a little

03:21bit where that speech goes in the sense of how far the revenge will go, because Hezbollah has

03:28already said that they will retaliate to what they called a massacre. They've already started

03:34sending a few more strikes across the border, even though that is nothing new. And then you

03:39have the Israelis themselves who are indicating that they are turning their objectives towards

03:47the northern border. Yoav Galan said we're opening a new phase in the war. He said that

03:51the centre of gravity is moving to the north. There have been some transfers of troops,

03:57transfers of resources, some of them from Gaza towards the Lebanese border. So a lot of signs

04:05that Israel is increasing possibly its operations towards Hezbollah. The army chief of Israel said

04:13that plans have been made, have been drawn up for a major operation against Hezbollah,

04:19though Israeli media report that a decision about whether that would be put into action

04:25has yet to be made. But we have to look back also when we answer the question, can this lead

04:32to an overall or outright war, is that since October the 7th, there have been nearly daily

04:38exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah. And there have been instances, especially when

04:45some of the commanders were targeted, when Iran responded to Israel with a barrage of missiles.

04:52Every time we ask, are we on the brink of this all-out war? And it seems that every time we

04:58reach the brink, all of the sides sort of respond because they need to respond, but they do it just

05:04enough so that it doesn't trigger this full-out war. And so we get to the brink and then we scale

05:10back. We get to the brink, we scale back. The problem with this is that there's always the

05:15possibility that at some point someone is going to make a mistake in their retaliation or their

05:21attack and go a little bit too much overboard and not give the option to the other side not

05:26to respond in a big way. And that is really the worry and that is why we are looking at this very

05:33closely, because it only takes one time to sort of spark this really global or regional war there.

05:41Finally then, Ketavan, let's just look a little bit wider. I mean, what about the reaction from

05:45elsewhere? Because we've heard not that much actually from other countries surrounding what's

05:50been going on. Well, one thing to look at, and that goes a little bit to this fear of something

05:57expanding to the region, is the response from Iran, because Tehran said that it reserved its

06:04right to respond. That is because in those attacks in Lebanon, their ambassador to Lebanon was

06:11actually injured there. So they feel that they were also targeted. And of course, we have to

06:16remind our viewers that Hezbollah is heavily linked financially and ideologically to the Iranian

06:24regime. So that is something to keep an eye on. Jordan also pointing the finger at Israel,

06:30saying that Israel is pushing the Middle East on the brink of a regional war. And then you have,

06:35of course, the Western countries were using their usual sentences, which is,

06:42we ask everybody to exercise restraints. We are worried about a possible spillover.

06:49The United States did that. The French did that. And then you have the reaction from the United

06:55Nations, where there is going to be a UN Security Council meeting on Friday to discuss the situation

07:02in Lebanon at the request of the Arab states. But there's also something interesting from the

07:08UN Human Rights Chief, Volker Türk, who said, one, that he wanted an independent investigation

07:15into what happened. And second, pointing also, as well as the Secretary General, António Guterres,

07:23to this idea of weaponizing civilian objects, using things that civilians could have had their

07:30hands on as a weapon of war. And that could fall under international law because that could be

07:37banned by international law. And so some in the United Nations and in the international community

07:43are saying, well, this is very iffy because, yes, these were mostly belonged to Hezbollah members.

07:52But as we saw, there were, A, children involved, and B, civilians. And there was indiscriminate

08:00targeting, in a sense. And so that is also going to be a question. Possibly

08:04that will be discussed at the UN Security Council.

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