00:00Well, one of Israel's goals is to allow the residents of the north of Israel, in other words, populations that
00:08are on the border with Lebanon, to be able to live there in peace.
00:13And for now, that is simply not succeeding because there have been successive waves of missiles even just minutes ago.
00:21More and more, these are coordinated barrages launched from Iran and from Lebanon, from Hezbollah and Lebanon simultaneously.
00:31So one of the aims of the Israeli government is that, is to show that the residents of the north,
00:38that they're safe and that they can keep living where they are.
00:41For now, that is not yet succeeding, despite this pretty vast Israeli incursion now into Lebanon.
00:49It's not a vast incursion in terms of infantry. It's significant. But in terms of the airstrikes, it actually, I
00:56think, is without precedent.
00:58The other thing is Israel really does want to eliminate, as far as is possible, Hezbollah, and I think seize
01:08an opportunity because of the unpopularity, because of the hatred so many Lebanese feel towards Hezbollah right now.
01:17And also because for the first time in years, there's a Lebanese government in place that enjoys international support.
01:25France even announced it was going to be offering military training or some sort of military support to the army
01:32of Lebanon that itself has been trying to make efforts, certain efforts against Hezbollah.
01:38And so Israel may feel that right now it has this opportunity and it does seem to have U.S.
01:45backing or perhaps the U.S. is ignoring for now this Lebanese theater.
01:51I think that what will limit the Israeli incursion into Lebanon is only if at some point the White House
01:58puts its foots down.
01:59Otherwise, because of the reason I said to you initially, the Israeli government's need to show residents of the north
02:07that they can live in peace, even if it doesn't succeed, I think that this incursion would continue in order
02:14to try to achieve that goal.
02:15Yeah, and I think a lot of the concern is the ways in which they ensure peace for the Israeli
02:22residents, because if you listen to some of the rhetoric coming out, the Israeli finance minister says they're going to
02:29turn southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs into another Gaza Strip, into something that looks like Han Yunus, which was
02:36completely devastated.
02:38What has Israeli public reaction been to this new front of the war?
02:46Well, you might be surprised to hear this, but these really just difficult to define statements by the finance minister
02:57haven't gotten a lot of play in Israel, because there have been other shocking things said by other ministers.
03:04And mostly Israelis are very confused because the prime minister has yet to directly address Israelis, apart from these little
03:12videos he's put out.
03:13He hasn't spoken to the press, he hasn't spoken to the press, he hasn't been seen in public, there's been
03:17no statement to Israelis, and so Israelis are confused, somewhat afraid.
03:25Also, by and large feel that the military action against Iran is justified, there's less talk of Lebanon, there is
03:33a lot of talk about the damage to the north of Israel.
03:38And so they've been focused on other things, but this finance minister, whose name is Bezalitz Motrich, is really representative
03:46of the Israeli government.
03:47He is a former thug.
03:51He's a guy who had a long career as a street thug, and he's now finance minister in this very,
03:57very extremist government.
03:59And the way he manages to get the interest of the world, which is what he's doing now through us,
04:05is by making these sorts of statements.
04:08His main point is to try and actually ensure Jewish settlers in the West Bank, in the Palestinian West Bank,
04:17that he has their back.
04:19And one of the ways he's doing that is by threatening, basically, for Israel to carpet bomb Lebanon.
04:25So, of course, these threats are very serious.
04:28And if we do look back at the way in which Israel managed its Gaza war, until again, until the
04:36U.S. put a stop to it, it really does look very much like carpet bombing.
04:40I suspect that the international community will not allow Israel to go that far in Lebanon.
04:46But these statements obviously are terrifying for anybody in place.
04:51Yeah, and just moments ago, the U.N. human rights chief saying Lebanon is becoming a key flashpoint and that
04:57he's extremely concerned.
04:59Nogolist's pivot to the situation in Iran.
05:02The war has killed at least 1,230 people.
05:05There's really warplanes carrying out their 14th wave of strikes since Saturday.
05:09Heavy attacks were reported in Tehran.
05:11Iran launched a drone and missile operation on targets in the heart of Tel Aviv.
05:16State media reports say that Saudi Arabia also intercepted attacks.
05:21Nogolist, what more can you tell us about Israel's latest strikes on Iran?
05:29Well, they're pretty massive.
05:31Last night, I think we heard that it was the 14th Israeli Air Force wave of attacks against Tehran,
05:40against what the Israelis are calling headquarters or sites of the Iranian terror regime in Tehran.
05:48The American strikes in Iran are no lesser and are possibly even greater than the Israeli strikes right now.
05:57But the accumulated firepower of these two air forces just relentlessly attacking Iranian installations is very, very, very significant.
06:10And it's unstopping.
06:11We had messages yesterday, both from the Israeli defense minister, also from the Israeli army chief of staff,
06:19and very importantly from the U.S., the commander of CENTCOM, and from the U.S. chief of staff, if
06:27I'm not mistaken, General Cain.
06:28All of them, all of them together, basically delineated a war that is going to last at least many more
06:37weeks.
06:38CENTCOM said it was prepared for 100 days of war, even taking into account that this could be a kind
06:45of fog of war type message to confuse the enemy.
06:50That's significant.
06:51And in Israel, you know, the authorities are very, very gung-ho right now.
06:57The only messaging that the Israeli authorities are handing out, even just to military correspondents here,
07:03is basically that they've hit, you know, so far 600 targets in Lebanon, 100 just in the last hour, uncountable
07:16targets in Iran,
07:17which, again, because we're not getting the same messaging from the states, we don't really know.
07:21But there is a sense of relentless attack, and the United States did declare that it now has complete air
07:29superiority,
07:30in other words, control over the air of Iran, which allows also the Israeli air force to operate basically as
07:38if it's on its own home ground,
07:40though it's so far away from Israel.
07:42Yeah, complete air superiority, but Iran still able to retaliate, a blast heard over Tel Aviv earlier this Friday.
07:49What more can you tell us about the Iranian strikes?
07:54Well, they're ongoing.
07:56There were strikes, there were sirens, air superiority sirens, and an interception over Tel Aviv just before I joined you
08:03today.
08:04Well, there have been sirens also in Jerusalem.
08:06The whole center of the country seems to be targeted.
08:09We are getting more and more the impression that Iran is being quite strategic.
08:14In other words, it's expending more of its missiles on Gulf Emirates than it is on Israel for now.
08:22They are also being very successful with their air defense system, anti-missile batteries, similar to Israel's Iron Dome.
08:31And what Iran is launching at Israel is a kind of constant drip of missiles, if I could put it
08:39that way.
08:39So almost at any given moment, there's an air raid siren going off somewhere in Israel, paralyzing the country,
08:48although Iran is doing it in such a way so as not to expend too much of its firepower all
08:54at once.
08:55I can tell you that this has been a week with no school, no work, no normal functioning in the
09:02country.
09:03Gyms are closed.
09:04Restaurants are all shuttered.
09:05And I did manage to go out for a few hours this morning and try and talk to people.
09:12One senses that people are really very concerned and do not have a sense of where this may be going.
09:19So alongside this, I would say across the board almost, Israeli feeling that Iran is a legitimate,
09:25the Islamic Republic of Iran is a legitimate target, there really is a lot of concern about where this might
09:32be going.
09:32And Jerusalem today, it's a sunny weekend day here.
09:36It's simply a ghost town.
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