00:00Lebanon has withdrawn accreditation from the Iranian ambassador demanding his departure from
00:05the country by Sunday. Bloomberg's Dan Williams joins us now. Dan, I want to pick you up on those
00:11comments that came through from Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz yesterday suggesting that
00:17the posture has shifted in Israel towards deterrence and potentially towards a more
00:24long-term quote-unquote occupation in the southern part of Lebanon. What do we understand
00:31is the objective here? I think you're certainly right, Jemana. This has been Israel's general
00:37multi-front posture since that Hamas attack of October 7th, 2023, which set off this ongoing
00:43conflict now in its third year. In southern Lebanon, Israel has a long-running score to settle
00:49with Hezbollah. That has been Iran's cat's paw in the region, in neighboring countries.
00:56And indeed, even as this war rages in Iran, this Israeli-U.S. war against the Iranian regime,
01:03this second front between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon is quickly gathering pace, intensity,
01:09could even eclipse that Iran war in terms of intensity and could become more protracted,
01:14certainly for Israelis and Lebanese. Israel's attitude is, even at the cost of displacing
01:19some one million Lebanese civilians so far from southern Lebanon, that this is the price that has
01:26to be paid by the Lebanese state so long as it fails to rein in Hezbollah as required by multiple
01:32agreements, including UN ceasefire agreements going back years. There's some indication the Lebanese
01:38state, as you noted, is feeling emboldened to crack down domestically on Hezbollah, on its
01:44Iranian sponsor. For the Israelis, this is too little, too late, and they're willing to go in
01:50quite deep. I mean, the Latani River, which the Israelis say now they will hold, and everything
01:55south of it, that accounts for some 10% of Lebanese territory. The Israelis are basically saying,
02:00this is what needs to be done to clear out Hezbollah, and the Lebanese civilians will come back
02:05once that job is done.
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