Global News Podcast - Israel launches ground offensive in Lebanon

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

Israel launches a "localised, targeted" ground operation against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, backed by air strikes and artillery fire. The US says it supports the incursion and warns against mission creep.

Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Thank you. Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Paul Moss, and at four hours GMT on Tuesday 1st October, this is a special edition of the podcast.

The Israeli army has begun what it calls a targeted ground operation in Lebanon. It says it targeted Hezbollah in villages close to the border with Israel. Also in this podcast, the US has said it supports the objectives of Israel's incursion and has warned of serious consequences for Iran if it attacks Israel in support of Hezbollah. We'll have reports and analysis from the BBC's correspondents in the region and from our international experts. So is this the much-anticipated invasion? For months, commentators have predicted that Israeli ground troops would end up crossing the border into Lebanon. Army chiefs have recently

been hinting it was about to happen, and now it has. Sort of. A statement by the Israeli military said they'd begun limited and localised raids against Hezbollah targets in the border area. They're supported, we're told, by the Israeli Air Force and artillery. Now, bear in mind that previous invasions have seen Israeli tanks go deep into Lebanese territory, indeed all the way to the capital, Beirut. So this could indeed be a relatively limited incursion. For the latest on what that means in practice, I turn to our correspondent in Beirut, Anna Foster. For the first time since the war in 2006, there are Israeli soldiers operating inside Lebanon,

and that is a big moment. It is something that the international community, that world leaders have tried to avoid. They've been calling for some kind of ceasefire, for de-escalation. The idea for saying this is going to be a localised, limited ground campaign. But it's very hard to see what that will look like at this stage. They want to try and recreate this buffer zone all the way between the Israel-Lebanon border and the Litani River. They want to push Hezbollah out of that area. But what it's really difficult to know right now is what Hezbollah's military capabilities still are, what sort of weaponry they still have left, what kind of fighting force they still have left and how they might respond to what is now unfolding. We were told that a million Lebanese people had already been displaced because of this conflict. Presumably, this land incursion could send more people fleeing.

I'm sure it will. A lot of people have already moved out of that area, but there still are a lot left. And a million people is a huge swathe of the Lebanese population, not to mention other foreign nationals who are in the country as well who are finding it near impossible to get out because commercial airlines, apart from the Lebanese national carrier, have all stopped flying and seats on them are very hard to come across. There is real concern about the lives of people who remain in the south of Lebanon and in the Bekaa Valley as well.

Many of them are refugees. Not everybody has the ability to flee. Many civilians have been killed in those Israeli airstrikes that we've seen over the last week or so. If you think of the war in 2006, there was just over 1,000 people killed in a month, but we've already had here in Lebanon more than 1,000 people killed in less than two weeks. Even before this conflict, the Lebanese state was struggling to provide basic services to its people, health care, electricity, etc.

What's the situation like now with this invasion and with the repeated bombardments? It's made that challenge even worse. Things like the medical system, which were already at full stretch and now we're told close to collapsing in certain places. Issues like shelter, for example. I can see people sleeping on the streets of Beirut here who fled here in the southern suburbs. There are families with a few clothes, with not much food,

and the state is finding it enormously difficult to look after them. Bear in mind, of course, that this war is between Israel and Hezbollah, not the Lebanese state specifically. But of course, the question is, will Lebanon's armed forces be drawn into it as well? I think we're at that stage at the moment where there are many, many questions. The answers should probably become clearer over the next few hours and days, and particularly as well the response that we may see from Hezbollah's allies, other Iranian-backed proxies in the region. It is a dangerous moment here in the Middle East. Anna Foster. The Israeli authorities have always made clear what they say is their objective in attacking Lebanon. They want to stop Hezbollah's rocket attacks on the north of Israel. Attacks which have forced some 60,000 local residents to leave their homes. Making Israel safe for their

return is supposed to be the goal. Our correspondent Lucy Williamson has been reporting from the Israeli border area and described the scene as the Israeli attack began. We've been hearing helicopters overhead for a while now and also the sound of artillery some distance away. A little while earlier there were a series of loud explosions that we heard here close to the border as Israel confirmed that it had launched what it's calling limited and targeted ground raids into Lebanon on what it called Hezbollah terrorist targets in the area. It's not clear at this stage what sort of scale or form those raids are taking. But we have witnessed a buildup of troops and tanks here at the border over the last few days. We saw a couple of dozen tanks by the main road here just earlier today. Israel's been inflicting blow after blow on

Hezbollah for the past couple of weeks, but any kind of ground invasion represents a new phase in this war, new risks for the Israeli military and new risks for the region as well. Lucy Williamson. This is by no means the first time that Israel has launched a ground invasion of Lebanon. Previous incursions have been met with what one can only describe as mixed success. So I asked the defence expert Jonathan Marcus what the Israeli military can expect this time from those they're fighting at the border. Hezbollah is well-armed, they're well-trained, they are an army. This is not a ragtag militia force or a ragtag group of gunmen and bombers. They are an actual army. And indeed, back in 2006, when there was the last major conflict between the two of them,

the Israeli military didn't fare that well. There were many lessons learned during that campaign, many failures, as was seen by the Israelis, of their own armist performance. So it'll be interesting to see, one, how well Hezbollah do, but also whether the Israelis have learned those lessons back from 2006. The fundamental difficulty is whatever success the Israelis may or may not have, and clearly they're very much on the front foot at the moment, how you turn any military success into a lasting political and diplomatic success is the crucial thing. has clearly failed to be able to do that in Gaza. There seems to be no political endgame there in sight. The question is, will he be more open to some kind of long-lasting diplomatic or political settlement that might, you know, solidify any Israeli gains that might come from this military action? There have been lots of occasions when Israel has crossed into

Lebanon over the last 50 years. On each occasion, the aim, they said, was to stop the attacks on their country. Originally, it was the Palestinian groups like the PLO. Now it's Hezbollah. Is there any reason to think that this invasion will have any more success than the previous ones because the attacks have continued to come? Well, I think that's a very fair point. And I think it's true that getting into Lebanon is relatively easy for the Israelis. They always go in with the military commanders being optimistic, asserting that they will have success. Getting out of Lebanon is much harder and has proved very troublesome, difficult and costly. I think, though, much will depend upon the broader strategic climate at the moment. Hezbollah has had

a devastating hit to its leadership, to its reputation, and so on. That essentially is a hit to Iran as well, one of Hezbollah's main sponsors, main backers. You know, this has to be seen as part of the wider struggle between Israel and Iran, which has been fought largely by forces allied to Tehran. So Hezbollah, obviously, in Lebanon, Hamas, to an extent extent in Gaza, the Houthis in far away Yemen and so on. And what the Israelis are clearly trying to do is to undermine that axis of resistance as the Iranians would like to call it. They're sending, as we saw from the message from Mr. Netanyahu himself to the Iranian people yesterday. They're trying to talk over the heads of the religious regime in Tehran to the Iranian people, but making it very, very clear

that if Iran itself is going to get engaged in this conflict directly, then very serious repercussions will ensue. And that's actually a message the Americans have been giving to the Iranians as well. Jonathan Marcus, you heard him there refer to Hezbollah's allies in the wider region. These also include Syria. Indeed, Hezbollah sent troops to defend the regime of Bashar al-Assad following the Arab Spring uprisings there in 2011. And as Israel began its latest offensive in Lebanon, there were also reports it had carried out airstrikes on the Syrian capital, Damascus, a development monitored by our Middle East analyst, Sebastian Usher. Syrian state media says that three civilians were killed and nine others injured. And also, it's not clear if she is one of those civilians, but quite a well-known news TV presenter, Safa Ahmed, is reported to have been killed.

The images that I've seen show a car that she was supposed to be in exploding, being blown up. Also, the other attacks have hit buildings. This is in the Maze district in Damascus, a very upmarket area. It's where there are embassies. It's where Iranian officials who've played a huge role in the continuation of President Assad's rule as he faced civil war. It's where they often are based. We had the attack that Israel carried out some time ago on the consulate, the Iranian consulate, which caused a strong reaction from Iran. There's only speculation at the moment beyond the death of this TV presenter of who might be the target. But it does seem to have been a targeted attack.

Israel has carried out hundreds of attacks in Syria for years now, but particularly since October the 7th, it's intensified. Israel never, though, really comments on this or gives much more information. Sebastian Usher. The US is Israel's staunchest ally, but it's an open secret that President Joe Biden has become increasingly exasperated with Israel and its refusal to agree to any of the peace deals on offer or suggestions of a ceasefire. And as our US State Department correspondent Tom Bateman told me, the administration is going along with the latest development, albeit rather grudgingly. What the White House is saying here basically is they're sort of repeating the Israeli language

around this, saying that it is a limited operation they understand to destroy infrastructure that could threaten Israeli citizens from Hezbollah, saying they believe that's in line with Israel's right to defend its citizens and they support its right to defend itself, they say, against Hezbollah and Iranian-backed groups. But then they go on to say, and this is one of the sort of motifs that we've had throughout this that of course we know that mission creep will be a risk and we will keep discussing this with the israelis so to me that is where we've you know it sort of extends the dynamic that we've had throughout this which is the americans have tried to make the israelis pull

back at various points that hasn't happened the The Americans have then had to support how much further the Israelis have gone, but say, don't go any further. And I think that's exactly what we've got, especially in that second part of that statement, saying, OK, we acknowledge you're doing what you're calling a limited operation. We expect it to stay like that. Don't go any further. And yet what you're saying seems to suggest that that don't go any further request may well be ignored just as previous requests haven't really gone anywhere with the Israeli government. Yeah, I mean, of course, that comes down to what Israel's sort of tactical ambitions are with these incursions. And it may well be. And I think there are quite a few signs that they probably do intend to try to keep these raids limited in the language that they use anyway, in terms of dismantling and destroying Hezbollah tunnels and weapon stores on the other side of the border. But of course,

we don't know. And what has happened, of course, with the air assaults on Lebanon have been very, very significant. I mean, the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, but also, you know, decapitation of Hezbollah's leadership. And then, according to Iranian authorities, more than a thousand people killed and some one million displaced, according to the UN. So we're into a very sharp cycle of escalation. That was the thing that the Americans, albeit they have welcomed the decapitation of Hezbollah in this way, but the cycle of escalation was exactly the thing they didn't want and they were trying to avoid for a long time. Now it's here. We have seen them support it and back it

because this is their Israeli ally doing it largely with American weapons. But I think we're into the same kind of cycle of this often dysfunctional relationship again where the Americans are still trying to get de-escalation. We heard President Biden say that he wanted them to stop and ceasefire today. But clearly, you know, we're nowhere near that. Tom Bateman in Washington. Let's end this podcast with the thoughts of our chief international correspondent, Lise Doucette, who's reported on the Middle East for many years.

I asked her how close we are to a region-wide conflict. There has been a region-wide conflict almost since the day after Hamas's attacks across southern Israel, which has triggered these unprecedented tensions across the region. Already, the Houthis have been drawn in, the militias in Iraq and Syria have been drawn in, and Hezbollah has been drawn in. So there has been, let us say, a small sea conflict for many months, but never have we seen the kind of escalatory tension that we are seeing now. And even though it is, in effect, a regional war in all but name, it could get much worse. That other phrase that's being used, an all-out war. Will the Houthis find the capability and the wherewithal to actually hit their mark when they try to fire rockets into Israel? Will Hezbollah recover its reeling now from these major blows?

Can it still strike back? And what does Iran have in its arsenal? These are still in the mix. And I have to say that in a region where we've often talked about the red lines, we've heard about restraint. We've heard about careful calibration, all of that now seems to be gone. Our chief international correspondent, Lise Doucette. And that's all from us for now,

but there'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was produced by Alice Adderley and mixed by Nick Randall. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Paul Moss. Until next time, goodbye. like Global News, Americast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts

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