Diplomatic correspondent from The Times of Israel, Lazar Berman - says the destruction the Hezbollah drones caused is surprising.
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00:00The drones is something that Israel expected.
00:05It was the same type of suicide drone that Hezbollah has been firing for a year now.
00:10From the initial investigation, I can say that one of the drones was shot down, the
00:14other one Israel chased with fighter planes, with helicopters, and then it dropped off
00:18the radar.
00:19I think the assumption was that it had crashed, and therefore no sirens were sounded.
00:24And that's why these soldiers were caught in the dining hall, and that's why so many
00:28of them were gathered together.
00:29But certainly a very surprising, a very painful event, when you have four soldiers killed.
00:35The numbers right now are nine seriously injured, several more moderately injured, and then
00:40there's about 50 or so who were lightly injured.
00:43A really, really difficult incident, one that is a failure of the IDF to use its very advanced
00:51air defense systems.
00:52And this is not something that's supposed to happen.
00:54The IDF says it will learn lessons, and it will make sure that this doesn't happen again.
00:59And Israeli authorities still investigating this, so a lot of questions still to be answered.
01:04That's right, that's right.
01:05And as you know that these operations continue in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah is able to
01:13fire from well beyond the places where IDF troops are.
01:15So it's not like the fire threat has been diminished.
01:20Airstrikes have taken out some, actually a significant number of the arsenal, but Hezbollah's
01:25rocket arsenal is so big that they are able to continue to fire hundreds of rockets a day.
01:30Now this is less than the thousands that Israel expected, but it's a significant toll on the
01:36country and Israel's northern border communities are still empty.
01:39Of course the goal of the operation in Lebanon is to allow them to return.
01:42We now have a fifth peacekeeper wounded in southern Lebanon.
01:45The Israeli forces have urged UN peacekeepers to leave their positions, but a spokesperson
01:50for UNIFIL says that they've made a unanimous decision to stay in the border region.
01:55What is the IDF saying about their plans to proceed here and also what are you hearing
01:58about these plans?
02:00Sure, I've spoken to sources within the government of Israel, not the military, and they say
02:06there's no plan to apply military pressure to UNIFIL.
02:10They say the plan is to apply diplomatic pressure to talk to them.
02:14Of course there have been these incidents and the Israeli government says that these
02:18were operational mistakes, they will be investigated.
02:21There was that one incident where two tanks went into a UNIFIL position.
02:25The IDF says that that was done during an extraction under fire after Hezbollah fired
02:30anti-tank missiles at IDF troops.
02:33The tanks backed into a position, stayed there for a number of minutes, and then left, and
02:37then they also say that Israel was in touch with UNIFIL troops the entire time and that
02:42there was no danger presented.
02:43So I think this will continue to escalate between the two.
02:46It looks like Israel is going to continue to insist that UNIFIL forces move away from
02:51the border and away from combat areas.
02:53The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says these attacks on Lebanon peacekeepers
02:59could be a war crime.
03:01What's the reaction been to that in Israel?
03:03Well, Israel, we have so much going on now and the UN Secretary-General is really not
03:09a very popular figure.
03:11Some of his statements have really enraged Israelis over the past year.
03:15So that statement itself I think isn't going to attract much attention from Israelis.
03:21The general sense is that the UN is in general not especially friendly to Israel and UNIFIL
03:26has not fulfilled its mission in southern Lebanon, of course, since 2006.
03:30Its mandate was to keep Hezbollah forces, armed forces, out of southern Lebanon.
03:36The Lebanese army is supposed to be the only force there besides UNIFIL and obviously that
03:40is not the case.
03:41So there really is a lot of frustration in Israel right now.
03:44And finally, with the announcement of this missile defence system from the US, what is
03:49that telling us about the timing of this, given that we have Israel's move on Iran to
03:55come at any time, and also, you know, the reliance on the US in this?
04:02So I think the main significance of this is not actually the capabilities of Israel's
04:06missile defences, as you know, are quite advanced, perhaps the most advanced in the world, but
04:11it's a sign.
04:12It's a sign that the US, the Biden administration, is standing with Israel, is actually going
04:16to put almost 100 troops on the ground with this battery in Israel to defend against a
04:21potential Iranian reaction, or to deter an Iranian reaction.
04:26Israeli officials tell me that an attack will happen.
04:29They haven't said when and where and what the target is going to be, but they say as
04:33much as possible they are trying to coordinate with the United States, but if they need to,
04:37they will act in Israel's security interest.
04:40So this is something that the whole region is waiting for, ever since the October 1st
04:46Iranian ballistic missile attack, some of which got through, but most of which was intercepted.
04:51Liza Berman, thank you so much for speaking with us.