All-out war between Hezbollah and Israel 'would be catastrophic'
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00:00And this all coming as the world is waiting to see how Israel will respond to what was the deadliest
00:05cross-border incident in months of exchanges of fire between its forces and the Lebanese
00:10Shia militant group Hezbollah. Twelve teenagers and children were killed in an Arab Druze town
00:16last weekend in the annexed Golan Heights after a rocket attack believed to be fired by Hezbollah.
00:23There are fears that this attack could result in an all-out regional war. In the meantime,
00:28Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the location.
00:35These children are our children. They are the children of us all. The State of Israel cannot
00:41and will not let it pass. A response will come and it will be severe.
00:48And joining me now is Simon Mabon, a Middle East specialist at the UK's Lancaster University. Simon,
00:53thank you for your time. When it comes to a regional war, both sides resemble America and
00:58Russia during the Cold War, as in there's always the threat. There's always the threat,
01:03but neither Israel or Hezbollah really want an all-out war, do they?
01:09No, they don't. I don't think anyone wants an all-out war. The devastation of that would be
01:14catastrophic. The repercussions of it would be huge. It runs the risk of pulling in lots of
01:20different states in the region. The neighbouring states are the militias that are operating across
01:25the region. They run the risk of involving the US, the UK and many others. So nobody wants this
01:33to escalate. There is a lot of diplomatic pressure being put on on all sides to ensure that things do
01:39not escalate right now. But I don't think either the Israelis nor Hezbollah and certainly not others
01:45in Lebanon want to see this escalate further. Do you think that rocket was actually aimed for
01:51Majal al-Sham or was it an accident? I can't imagine that anyone would
01:56deliberately target children. I think it's a truly abhorrent thing to do. Whether they
02:04targeted what they see as an occupied village in the Golan Heights, I'm not sure because Hezbollah
02:11is ultimately denying that it was them. They are denying that they were involved in this.
02:16But it seems pretty clear that the Israelis believe it was Hezbollah. So it's a bit of a tricky one.
02:25So with this in mind, where does this leave Israel in terms of options?
02:31Well, we know that Benjamin Netanyahu has been given the right to take the call as to what the
02:36appropriate response will and should be. So given everything that we know about Netanyahu,
02:43he takes a very strong, firm stance against any type of terror attacks that protect Israeli lives.
02:50And that suggests that there will be a firm response against Hezbollah. But we've already
02:58seen types of responses against Hezbollah attacks against Israel. So it risks increasing this
03:06escalation that we've been seeing in the months since the October 7th attacks and what's happened
03:13in Gaza. So I worry that this will contribute to an increase, not necessarily a dramatic regional
03:21conflict, but it will certainly have a vociferous and firm response that will devastate the lives
03:30of ordinary people in Lebanon, which runs the risk of then having a knock-on impact in Israel.
03:36So there has to be some type of diplomatic solution here,
03:39because this cannot continue in the way that it's going.