7 Lebanese and an Israeli killed in an exchange of fire
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Transcript
00:00 Since the war in Gaza began almost six months ago, Hamas ally Hezbollah has exchanged near-daily fire with Israeli troops.
00:08 Now the Lebanon-based group, backed by Iran, says it has launched dozens of rockets into the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona.
00:14 Its response to deadly strikes on a village in southern Lebanon Tuesday that left at least seven dead.
00:21 For the latest on this, let's bring in France 24's Rawad Taha in Beirut.
00:24 Rawad, it has been a very intense past 48 hours.
00:28 What more can you tell us?
00:31 Indeed. So the most striking event in Lebanon over the past 48 hours was the Israeli airstrike on a compound located in the village of Hebrieh in southern eastern Lebanon.
00:45 Now, according to the final death toll of that of that airstrike, we have seven paramedics who lost their life in that airstrike.
00:56 This was an attack on a compound that has been used for by rescue teams in the area of southern eastern Lebanon.
01:04 It is an area where other factions and other military organizations other than Hezbollah are present, like the affiliated groups of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
01:17 However, the compound which was attacked only hosted the young paramedics from that village who were helping in any rescue efforts over the past months.
01:28 Shortly a few hours ago, Hezbollah retaliated to that airstrike with a rocket attack on northern Israel, targeting mainly Kiryat Shmona,
01:40 which, according to Israeli media, resulted in the death of one Israeli civilian on the other side of the border.
01:48 Also yesterday, during the early hours of the day on Tuesday, we saw deep Israeli airstrikes into Lebanon, in particular to the northern area of the Bekaa Valley.
02:01 We're talking about airstrikes that are more than 100 kilometers deep into southern Lebanon.
02:08 Baalbek, in particular, is another Hezbollah stronghold which was subject to a number of attacks since the start of the skirmishes on October 8th, but not very frequently.
02:20 So deep airstrikes into the Bekaa Valley, frequent exchange of fire between the two parties on both sides of the borders.
02:27 We're looking at an escalatory trend for sure over the past 48 hours.
02:31 And it seems that this is one of the biggest escalations we've seen between Israel and Hezbollah in years.
02:38 Are things only going to get worse now, given the current context of the Israel-Hamas war?
02:44 We know for a fact that a lot of parties have been trying to mediate between Hezbollah on one hand and Israel on the other hand, to try to contain the conflict.
02:54 We know for sure that Hezbollah is not seeking a full-scale war.
02:58 However, with the current balance of powers and how things are looking, this contained escalation, which Hezbollah has aimed for since October 8th in support of Hamas and Gaza, obviously is not working.
03:13 We have more than 100,000 civilians evacuated on both sides of the borders.
03:20 And it seems that it's only been getting tense, and all the mediation effort between the parties, whether France or the U.S., trying to limit this conflict and put an end to it and implementation of Resolution 1701 is not particularly working,
03:39 especially given Hezbollah's stance is that no negotiations before the war in Gaza is over.
03:45 So we're looking at an escalatory trend and possibly some more serious escalations over the next period.