Is Israel’s Strike on Hezbollah an Escalation?

Watch Is Israel’s Strike on Hezbollah an Escalation? - AlArabiya English on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00So, Israel saying it has struck these Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon today.

00:05I mean, does it look to you like we're looking at an escalation here?

00:10Or is this very much in line with what we've seen over these last 12 months or so?

00:16Thank you for having me.

00:18Now, obviously, the fact that a civilian has been added to the negotiating team

00:24should escalate the situation.

00:28What we see is, in our view, in line with the process that's been happening

00:36since the cessation of hostility in November 2024.

00:43Now, ultimately, we believe that the negotiating committee,

00:48if it does end up progressing in a positive manner,

00:55should diffuse the situation or at least should help in working towards a cessation of hostility altogether.

01:03So, we don't believe that we are seeing an escalation to the already escalated situation in the region.

01:11OK, we're obviously approaching the end of the year and there's an important deadline looming,

01:18which is the 31st of December, which was the deadline the Lebanese government was given to disarm Hezbollah.

01:25Do you think Lebanon is going to be able to meet that target?

01:28Now, the dates we're looking at at the moment is before the 31st.

01:33We're looking at the 19th of December.

01:37This is the second meeting of the negotiating committee.

01:41And then we have hopes that with that meeting,

01:44we'll start to really see exactly whether we're going to be able to progress towards an agreement of some sort.

01:49At least, you know, an agreement to work towards a truce.

01:54Obviously, we're not talking about peace.

01:56We're not talking about normalization between us and Israel, but we're talking about the truce.

02:01Now, the deadline of the 31st of December that was initially, you know, placed by the army,

02:11we will have the report by the 5th of January, the general of the Lebanese army will give his report on the 5th of January to advise,

02:23which we hope will have the complete disarming of the region south of Lutani.

02:33So if that's met and the report is positive that the south of Lutani has been completely disarmed,

02:40that means we are actually in line with the stages that the Lebanese army has actually put in the plan.

02:47And then after that, obviously, we have to move to the second stage.

02:50The second stage is obviously talking about north of Lutani,

02:53which is obviously a bit more difficult in our view that south of Lutani can pretty much be done,

03:01and we believe it's going to get done on time.

03:04But north of Lutani, it's going to cause a lot more issues

03:08because we believe at this stage that Hezbollah is refusing to concede

03:14that there's no way that they're going to keep any of their arms,

03:18whether it's south of Lutani or north of Lutani.

03:21So I guess what we'll have to see

03:25is whether Hezbollah will be cooperating with the Lebanese army

03:29and with the Lebanese government for the disarming of north of Lutani.