00:00Well, the Israeli army says it's detected missiles being launched again from Iran tonight.
00:06For the very latest, let's cross live to Jerusalem.
00:09France 24's Noga Tarnopolsky is standing by for us.
00:13Noga, let's begin with the situation in Lebanon.
00:17Panicked residents earlier fleeing the southern suburbs ahead of what's feared to be a major bombardment.
00:24It looks like that bombardment got underway just before we came on air.
00:28Israel is saying it's launching a new phase of this war.
00:31What exactly are we expecting?
00:34That's right.
00:35Well, it really did start in the last 10 minutes or so, Sharon.
00:39I'm expecting a very massive bombardment of Dakhia of southern Beirut and possibly much more in southern Lebanon in general.
00:51The Israeli incursion right now is pretty much unprecedented.
00:56The simultaneous evacuation notices given by the Israeli army to residents of all of southern Lebanon and then a few
01:05hours later to residents of southern Beirut have left Lebanese with not a lot of space of where to go
01:15to.
01:15I've even seen images of some Beirutians simply standing by the Cornish on the coast of Lebanon because they have
01:22nowhere to go and the traffic jams were so bad.
01:26But if we take the Israelis seriously, and I think after the last few days we should, this is going
01:32to be possibly an unprecedented bombardment.
01:35There is, I have the sense here today that Israel perceives that it has an opportunity to very close to
01:44really dismantle or finish off Hezbollah, given its weakness after the previous Israeli hits on Hezbollah in 2024.
01:54And also the Hezbollah's unpopularity among the Lebanese.
01:59So Israel may now sense it's a real opportunity to move in and wipe the organization out.
02:06Unprecedented strikes, as you say, Noga.
02:08We've been hearing suggestions in the U.S. that this campaign could last up to eight weeks.
02:13Israel saying it could be, you know, this could continue for one week or two weeks.
02:16What is the actual situation here and how long can Israel keep up this campaign?
02:21The finance ministry there saying today that the war is costing the economy up to three billion a week.
02:29Right, three billion dollars, which is astonishing.
02:33I think that the United States is going to be the guide on this matter and not Israel.
02:38Israel may end up going into even worse debt than it already went into in the last two and a
02:44half years of war against Hamas.
02:47And it also has significant U.S. support.
02:49But it is, you know, as you say, both countries are really burning through enormous resources at an incredible pace
02:57during the last week.
02:59We heard from CENTCOM today, the U.S. Central Command, that they're gearing up for 100 days of war.
03:06This, of course, could be fog of war type propaganda or it may be a realistic planning.
03:12And in Israel, the messaging has been very mixed and vague, I think, in part so as not to give
03:19too much information to the enemies.
03:22But also because I think that it's the United States that's going to be making those big decisions.
03:28And Noga, you've taken shelter there.
03:31Air raid alerts were sounding just before we came on air.
03:34But is a sense of normality to some degree returning?
03:37Surveys suggesting that the vast majority of Israelis actually support this campaign.
03:44That's right.
03:46Israelis across the board perceive in Iran an absolute threat to Israel, an existential threat.
03:52And the vast majority of Israelis, more than 70 percent of Jewish Israelis and more than 40 percent of Arab,
04:01Arab-Palestinian Israelis, believe that this is the justified campaign.
04:06But very interestingly, Sharon, in the political polls that have just come out today, the first one since the war,
04:13this part of the war began,
04:14it's not shifting Israeli political allegiances.
04:18So Prime Minister Netanyahu personally and his political coalition are not getting more support from Israelis.
04:26So you're seeing support for the idea of this war from Israelis across the board by and large.
04:34But I am not sure how deep that support will be, given the lack of confidence that Israelis feel in
04:41general in this current government.
04:44Noga, for now, thank you.
04:45Always good to speak with you.
04:46That's our Jerusalem correspondent, Noga Tepartanopolsky.
04:49Do stay safe.
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