Israel official says any Lebanon ground operation to be swift

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00:00Reporter Claire Paquin is standing by in Jerusalem. We can speak to her now. Hello to you, Claire.

00:05First question, we're having these near daily exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah

00:11just escalate dramatically this week. Some people calling for a ceasefire. It seems that,

00:17you know, the Israeli prime minister pressing down on Israel's operations. Tell us more.

00:22Certainly, the prospect of a ceasefire back and forth. We're looking at what's really a diplomatic

00:32game. Earlier on in the week, we had reports that US officials were hopeful that a ceasefire

00:39between Israel and Hezbollah could come into place soon. Then we had a statement from the

00:43prime minister, the Israeli prime minister's office, saying that Benjamin Netanyahu hadn't

00:48even responded to the proposal put forward by the US and France for a ceasefire. That caused

00:54frustration in the US. We heard from John Kirby, the defence spokesman, saying that the US had

01:01every reason to believe that Israel was at least on board with the ceasefire talks. And now we're

01:08hearing we had a statement earlier on from the Israeli prime minister's office this morning.

01:12We're now hearing that Israel says that it does share the aims of the US initiative

01:18and that representatives from both countries had discussed it yesterday on Thursday and will

01:23continue to discuss it in the next few days. Of course, this is all in the context of Benjamin

01:28Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who is now in the US and he is preparing to speak

01:33at the UN General Assembly in New York later this afternoon.

01:37Yeah, and Claire, what can you tell us about the latest on the ground?

01:41Well, certainly Israel has been very clear that it's continuing to hit hard on Hezbollah. We're

01:46now seeing areas of the border between Lebanon and Syria being targeted by Israeli strikes,

01:53areas where Israel believes weapons are being transported from Syria into Hezbollah's hands.

02:00More than 700 people in Lebanon have been killed in the last few days alone, including me having

02:06reports from Reuters news agency saying that nine members of one family in Sheba, which is near the

02:14border, near the Lebanese-Syrian border, were killed earlier on, four children included in

02:20that figure. So certainly we're hearing and we're seeing more and more upscale of the strikes from

02:26Israel into Lebanon to hit Hezbollah targets, but also seeing many families fleeing, trying to get

02:33to safer places. On this side though of the border in northern Israel, large swathes of the territory

02:39having alerts throughout the night and this morning and this afternoon as well. Many large

02:44geographical area from Haifa on the coast, including areas of the lower Galilee and southern Golan,

02:50where people have been told they need to go into their safe rooms, go into air raid shelters,

02:55as rockets from Hezbollah and drones as well are seen in the skies. Many of them are intercepted

03:00by Israel's defence system, but not all of them. I was at a hospital in Nahrir, which is in the

03:06north of Israel, not too far at all from the Lebanese border, and I was speaking to health

03:12personnel there and patients, the health personnel telling us how they're preparing for an increased

03:17escalation in what is already a very tense conflict and situation right now on the ground.

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