00:01Let's get some more analysis now on what's happening in the Middle East and I'm joined
00:05by correspondent Nick Dole who's just returned from Jerusalem. Nick, hello to you. Now we've
00:10just seen Hezbollah join Iran's retaliation.
00:13Yeah look and this is a very significant development and I guess it's an example of how the conflict
00:18in Iran can bring in other groups on other fronts. So over the weekend Hezbollah, a militant
00:24group which has been backed and funded by Iran. It said that, you know, it condemned
00:29the attacks in Iran expressing solidarity but it didn't suggest or at least it didn't
00:35say that it was going to retaliate on Tehran's behalf. Just in the last few hours we have
00:41seen that retaliation has begun. So Hezbollah has confirmed it's been firing drones and
00:46missiles towards Israel in retaliation it says for the killing of the Supreme Leader of Iran.
00:53It's not yet clear, Kath, whether any of those projectiles have landed in Israel. Certainly
00:58the IDF does have significant air defences near the Lebanese border. But now we're also
01:03seeing Israel hitting back with military operations across a range of sites in Lebanon. Witnesses
01:10are reporting dozens of explosions and you can see the images of some of them. Many of them
01:15are confined to Beirut's southern suburbs. So look, yeah look, it's not entirely unexpected
01:22that Hezbollah might seek to get involved. But I guess what we're seeing now is that that
01:28ceasefire that was in place since late 2024 has now been well and truly shattered.
01:34What is Hezbollah's capacity? What capability does it still have? It has, it's not really the
01:39force that it once was. Absolutely not. No, Israel really, you know, largely crippled Hezbollah
01:46after October 7. Of course, the militant group was firing rockets and missiles into northern Israel.
01:54But we saw in 2024, Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, was killed by the IDF.
02:04Israeli intelligence managed to track his movements. They traced him to a bunker and they dropped a huge
02:11bomb on that bunker and killed him. And in the months before that attack, we also saw, I guess,
02:17another quite extraordinary feat of Israeli intelligence in the sense that they were managed,
02:22they managed to sneak explosive devices into pages that were being used by senior Hezbollah figures.
02:30And Israel then simultaneously detonated them. And in doing so, struck a real blow against Hezbollah's
02:38leadership. So look, the leadership was decimated. So were many of their weapons capabilities. Now,
02:45clearly, they do still have some capability to fire projectiles towards Israel. But I think that,
02:52I guess that reduced capability certainly would have been part of Israel's calculations when they
03:01were launching this strike against Iran. If you think back maybe three years or so ago,
03:07if Israel had struck Iran in this way, then it could have relied on a massive retaliation from Hezbollah,
03:14including many, many thousands of rockets pointed towards Israel, retaliation from Hamas,
03:21retaliation from the Houthis, all sorts of proxies that Iran had in the region.
03:26Well, if you look at certainly Hamas and Hezbollah, their capabilities have been largely degraded.
03:32And Israel's been striking the Houthis as well. So I think certainly that would have been part of
03:37the equation, part of Benjamin Netanyahu's calculations before launching this attack.
03:42But as we're seeing just in the last few hours, Hezbollah still has some in reserve. I guess it'll
03:47be interesting to see over the coming hours whether they sustain this attack or whether this is more
03:52of a symbolic retaliation on Tehran's behalf.
03:55Nick Dole, thank you very much for the update.
03:57Thanks, Kat.
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