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00:00Israel has rejected that ceasefire plan. Its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled
00:05to address the UN General Assembly this Friday. So with no progress on a ceasefire, where does
00:10this leave international efforts to halt the crisis? For more, I'm joined by our International
00:15Affairs Editor, Philip Turle. Hello to you, Philip. How do you explain Israel's position here?
00:20I think there are several reasons that you can evoke to explain this. First of all,
00:26I think we need to have a look at what is being asked for by the international community.
00:32They put forward this ceasefire plan, which has been proposed by the United States,
00:36the European Union and 10 other states. It was almost also backed by Zakir
00:40Starmer, the British Prime Minister. Earlier today, he's due to meet Donald Trump later today.
00:47But what it's basically calling for is a 21-day ceasefire, which would take immediate effect
00:53across the Israel-Lebanon border to allow space for diplomacy to try to work out a long-term
00:59solution and to give all parties in this standoff, Israel, Hezbollah, even Hamas, a real chance to
01:06reach diplomatic settlements. Israel had agreed to that. And behind the scenes, even the Israeli
01:13Prime Minister said that he would be willing to accept that deal. But he's now backpedaled and
01:18said no, Israel is going to carry on fighting. So why is he doing that? I think there are a
01:23couple of reasons. First one is that he knows that he's on a winning streak against Hezbollah.
01:26When you see the attacks that have happened over the last 10 days or so with the blowing up of the
01:32walkie-talkies and the pagers, which has knocked out Hezbollah's communication system, the killing
01:38of several Hezbollah leaders, the Israelis know that they are in an advantageous position. That's
01:45why they're keeping up these strikes in a bid to push Hezbollah back even further away from the
01:50border. There are reasons to believe that they may even want to push them up as far as the Litani
01:55River, which is even further north than the port city of Tyre in Lebanon, which has come under
02:01attack as well. So that's one of the reasons. The second reason is that Benjamin Netanyahu is under
02:07pressure from his far-right support in the Israeli government not to agree to a ceasefire, either a
02:13ceasefire in the Gaza Strip or a ceasefire concerning Hezbollah, because they want this
02:21confrontation to continue to basically do as much as they can to wipe out Hezbollah. He doesn't want
02:26to lose his position as prime minister, so that's why he's going in that direction. And the third
02:30point that he's said all the way down the line is that he wants the 60,000 or so Israeli citizens in
02:35northern Israel to be able to return home. They've evacuated that area as a result of the shelling
02:40by Hezbollah. That's also his main aim. So I think it's a three-point reason for the Israeli
02:46prime minister to refuse this ceasefire deal. There's a big question about a ground offensive,
02:52William. Will it take place? Will it last? And how long? What we're seeing here is the same pattern
02:58that we've seen before. We saw it back in 2006. First, full bombing raids, and then there would
03:03be a ground offensive launched afterwards. Then we saw it in the Gaza Strip after the attacks
03:08of October last year. First of all, bombing raids, and then an incursion, a ground offensive. Are we
03:14seeing the same this time around? This is much more complicated for the Israeli government,
03:18because it knows that it risks a lot if it goes wrong. If you look back at the last couple of
03:23times in 1982 and 2006, Israel did not come out of it on the winning side. Back in 2006,
03:31they sent in artillery. They had to pull them out because there were too many losses
03:34amongst Israeli soldiers. So it's a dodgy situation for the Israeli government, but it
03:39looks like that is the path that they are continuing to follow for the moment. What about
03:45on the other side of the border? What has the reaction been from Hezbollah? Do we know if they
03:48would accept a ceasefire? Hezbollah is, I think, reluctant to accept that ceasefire, because that
03:55would be seen as an admission of weakness. They are remaining defiant, saying they're going to
03:59carry on. The question is, how much damage has been done to Hezbollah? We know they've had
04:03communications knocked out. Does that mean that they are no longer able to fire missiles? Well,
04:07it doesn't really, because they've been carrying on doing that ever since these attacks started,
04:12and they're still doing it now, even going as far as trying to send a missile into Tel Aviv.
04:17So it looks like Hezbollah is still continuing to be difficult as far as Israel is concerned.
04:21What we want to know now is what is the position of Iran? Because Iran is, I think, the kingmaker
04:28in all this. It's Iran which is providing military support for Hezbollah. It's providing it with
04:35money. But Iran doesn't want to get involved in a much wider conflict in the areas. That's why
04:39it's using its proxies, be it Hezbollah, be it Hamas, be it the Houthis, to cause problems for
04:44Israel. But Iran wants to keep out of it, because it doesn't want international retaliation against
04:49it, because it wants to keep its nuclear program intact. So all of these are factors that could
04:56play into what is going to happen in the long run. I think what the international community
05:00doesn't want, and that's why we see this growing frustration in Washington about the intransigence
05:05of the Israeli leadership, is for all of this to spiral out of control, because then it would be
05:10much more difficult to handle. For the moment, it seems pretty difficult, almost impossible,
05:16to rein in the Israeli prime minister. All right. Thank you very much, Philip Turrell,
05:21our international affairs editor.

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