informative. they must communicate to their stake holders in southern lebanon. do they not? to those who are supporters of hezbollah, are at large? >> absolutely. if this ends up becoming an attack that does very little damage, then it will be difficult for them to be able to say that they have succeeded in avenging their number two and restoring. if they do too much damage, then they have given the israelis a pretext to escalate further. >> got it. >> so this is a very dangerous game. >> trita, standby. we are reaching the top of the hour here on our broadcast.

israel launching preemptive strikes we will have lloyd austin with the israeli defense minister to discuss lebanese- hezbollah attacks. secretary austin also reaffirming the united dates ironclad commitment to israel's defense against any attacks by iran and its regional partners and proxies, and hezbollah, and it's part, saying it is avenging, it is responding to the killing and assassination of its number two leader. and then being very clear to what it implements have been, but over 300 rockets fired from the south of lebanon. by hezbollah into the northern parts of israel into the list of some 10 or 11 military bases. and then in addition to that thrones were also activated in this military operation. i want to go to our msnbc national security and intelligence analyst mark

mirabilis, mark, thinks for joining us on this. and as we get more of these details in we are understanding the numbers that we are hearing , straight from hezbollah, just as i noted as well as the basis, and i think you and i were talking last hour about this, what you take from the specificity that we are getting out of hezbollah, and the idea for that matter, where we might be, because question is will this escalate? >> sure, well, first and foremost, as i said previously, the criminal intelligence collective here. this allows the israelis the ability to preempt and thwart any kind of mass casualty events, which would have caused a tremendous escalation. no, hezbollah's statement is actually sick pickett, and when they are naming the military targets they are doing so, in an effort to what israel would come in some ways the okay with. so, or publicly and privately

to the iranians that attack a civilian infrastructure, civilian targets would cross a redline. so, in some ways, hezbollah's statements like this in the specificity to indicate that this round is over. and, as we seen, you know, the airport is over, the israelis certainly announced that in their view that this is not necessarily a standout, but this exchange is finished. the real question is, is this going to be enough for hezbollah to satisfy their own domestic constituency, and on the israeli side and i think, you know, this is something that is actually quite sick pickett, there are calls within the israeli national security infrastructure to actually strike back hezbollah hard the defense minister has even, since october 7th, been calling for strikes on hezbollah, so, there is going to be a domestic issue inside israel on the way this goes from here.

that hezbollah statement is significant. i think it signifies this round is over. let me add one more quick point to this because there is some talk over you know, is this going to be at? and the one piece on hezbollah that we sometimes seem to forget is that, first of all, it has a an extensive kind of overt military structure. but it also is a terrorist organization and they have an extensive overseas, so the notion or possibility of ace domestic asymmetric warfare energizing a its external terrorist apparatus overseas, which would take months overtime i think that is something that we need to be as well. so, when they talk about other things happening in the future they could be referring to that. >> what would you say is hezbollah's were stands now? it could be very active, it could be the very opposite of that.

again, looking at the four months that have transpired that have passed, since the assassination, the killing of hezbollah's number two, but would you say hezbollah's were stances today? >> well i think there have been lots of reports the leadership has on the ground. beirut, but ultimately hezbollah has not done anything near what it is capable of. and i think that, you know, at the end of the day a war between the two sides we talked a bit about how this is very harmful to the israelis, but from hezbollah's standpoint as well, you know, if the israelis start hitting beirut and hitting his hezbollah infrastructure there, they are going to suffer tremendously, and remember, hezbollah is a little bit. >> and community organization as well. >> and the iranians wants to lose you know, kind of their top surrogate in the region? so, there's a lot of reasons why there should-- this should

de-escalate right now, and you know, but we are going to see kind of the next 24, 36, 48 hours whether both sides will be up to come back. in my defense i don't think they will. i think this is over for now. >> i mean, you can't read video, but we were showing video earlier, mark that we saw of the more cabinet meeting. you-- what is your assessment of what they might be discussing in that meeting? >> first of all there will be a lot of outrage amongst the israeli public. that is different than what is happening in the north. there is outrage in israel over accepting 50,000 israelis, who can't go back home to their houses. there is support, frankly, for you know, the israeli military actions against hezbollah, it is not a controversial topic, it is, when it comes to gaza. so there will be voices within the israeli cabinet and it might even be from the defense register. there might be forces

to take stronger actions. interestingly though, per minister, benjamin netanyahu who has just been criticized in some anyways for what happened in gaza, he has been less a proponent of going after hezbollah and lebanon. and in israel everything weeks. you will have a lot of press likes on what happened, but ultimately, the question will be how much pressure is on the government to do more? after what happened over the last, you know, six, seven, eight hours. >> >> mark, why wouldn't benjamin netanyahu wants to be more of a hawk, when we are talking about hezbollah? >> this is kind of looking at netanyahu over the long-term, he has never been someone who is enormously bold, courageous in his, you know, from a military standpoint, so, you know, there has not been, you know, for example, this kind of long desire in some circles the israeli military strike on iran,

he is not really, kind of fun after hezbollah again. and so, in my view and i think the view of many others he is the one, interestingly enough, when it comes to the north, he is less inclined to take action. it is totally opposite, after october 7th, he actually advocated, not only towards gaza, but after also going after hezbollah in the north as well. i think there are some parts of the israeli national security structure that understand that this was referenced in the last hour, that look, can the israeli military sustain this? the israeli military is not going for conflicts, they have been at gaza for long time and that is a whole other issue, and they actually stand a grant campaign there, the israeli economy has suffered as well. so there's a lot in it in terms of an exhausted retired military and economy that is not really going to be able to stand another front, but a lot

of the reasons why. >> animal general mccaffrey saying this would have to be on the ground and they are alluding to that's difficulty. mark, standby. let's bring in nbc news for an going to correspondent, matt bradley, live in tel aviv. what are you learning in terms of the effect that happened overnight? >> well, what we are hearing actually, the attack happened a couple of hours knowing what this was was a preemptive attack by the israelis. we have been hearing this from the israeli government, they said they were doing this in their capacity, as their legal capacity to defend themselves. they launch this preemptive attack, because they said they had intelligence that indicated that hezbollah was planning a large-scale attack, so, this predawn strike that involved what sounds like many different fighter jets by the israelis crossing over and striking targets that belong to hezbollah in southern lebanon. this was then met, according to hezbollah their own statements, with attacks that fired against northern israel.

hezbollah statements, interestingly, didn't mention they have been fighting against an israeli preemptive strike. so, it looks as though whatever happened israel was the one who shot first. they started doing so, basically to avert a large- scale attack that hezbollah, which then occurred, according to hezbollah. now hezbollah has said that they are striking back against the israelis but they were doing this as part of their long plan and vowed attack against the israelis in revenge for the killing of a top hezbollah commander in the southern beirut neighborhood which was last month. now, this was something that we have known about for a while. the entire region has been preparing for this, and this was thought to be-- there was talk this could be done by hezbollah first, because, like hamas in the gaza strip, this is an iran group. now, iran has also vowed to retaliate and to attack israel for their case, because of the assassination of a top level hamas official in the iranian capitol of tehran also on

basically a couple of hours after he was killed in beirut last month. so this has brought the whole region to the precipice of a regionwide war, and one of the reasons why the united dates has parked so many military assets, in addition to what the u.s. already has come here in the region, and this is why this is so incredibly dangerous, but, as i am talking to you now, we still don't know the full contours or scope of this attack. so far it looks as though the israelis only struck hezbollah targets in lebanon. and it looks as though hezbollah targets in northern israel. so, we have to put this in context. at the same time, the fear will sort of expand to include all of lebanon, all of israel, the entire middle east, so far, this seems to be somewhat contained in two regions of lebanon and israel that have already been the scene of violence, ever since october 7th. so, geographically they haven't actually seen this expand its

footprint, beyond what has already been in play, ever since october 7th, because remember, as we've been watching all of the horrific violence that has been going on in gaza ever since this horrific attack on october 7th we have been seeing a much smaller, there is still very costly and violent fight over the border, between israel and southern lebanon. so, the fact that we are still seeing how this morning, despite all of this talk of a massive attack and strike by the israelis the fact that we are still just seeing what looks as though the same footprint and really not really a whole lot more than the same level of fighting that we have already seen, it is still unclear whether or not this is going to expand and whether or not this could be a real regionwide war that everyone has been fearing. >> i want to get your read on this. we got the sent from the idf, this is a statement that always get some of the details out. they are sing about 100 and fighter jets from the air force attacked and destroyed thousands of hezbollah's firing canisters. most of them aimed towards the

north of the country and some also towards central israel. so, again, this statement, a mirror of what we saw, from hezbollah and away that they are giving a lot of specificity , and, as one of our analyst was saying earlier, matt, that they were saying, with all of this detail it seems to indicate that this is now done. of course, i wanted to get your read, based on what you know of, there is war cabinet meeting, there is of course what they are implement in there on the ground for other israelis in terms of their day of operations what they can and cannot do. what is the read, in terms of will there be work? >> that is something that everybody is asking, that is the million-dollar question here, which we are about to hear from the idf. they have invited us and other reporters to join a digital press conference and we will here, i believe the main spokesman spokesperson for the idf, he described the situation.

like i said, the real question here is whether or not this expands. what we already described, with the israelis have already described is an increased fighting over the border of israel and lebanon, whether it is the qualitative increase to the level of the wider war in lebanon have spent the last month and lebanon. meaning just this event, we have been trying to gauge whether or not that would involve, what looked like happen in 2006, with the israelis actually launched a ground incursion in lebanon. we have really leveled southern lebanon and huge swats of infrastructure and killed well more than 1000 lebanese, mostly civilians. now, that would be a disaster for lebanon, and the region, the real problem here is that hezbollah has become so much more powerful and last 20 years. it now has with the cia and others speculate could be a missile arsenal of 150,000

missiles, many of them targeted, much more sophisticated than the kind that were brought to bear back 20 years ago. so, this is a question that will have to be answered as we see it. we don't really know, because, as this is going on, it is unclear who is holding back, whether or not the israelis will be holding back to see what hezbollah does, whether hezbollah will fight off their entire arsenal before it is destroyed by the israelis, and crucially, whether or not the iranians are going to weigh in. now, we heard from the statements, by hezbollah, this is just the first phase of their retaliation after the assassination last month, so, we could be seeing quite a bit more, but here, in tel aviv, as you can see, there are no air raid sirens. the airport was closed very, very briefly. it is now reopened, as far as we understand, so, it is really hard to tell whether or not this is it, or whether or not it is going to expand, because

remember, back in april there was a similar set of event, where there was this unprecedented volley of attacks from the iranians, after the israelis had attacked a diplomatic mission in syria, belonging to the iranians. that volley of missiles that were aimed at israel that was shot down by the united dates and other allies including the jordanians in the region, that was more of a symbolic kind of retaliation, and there has been a lot of talk about what would happen now, this is a valid retaliation from the iranians and hezbollah, whether it would be has symbolic or a real example of a lethal strike meant to try and, not just deter the israelis from striking further afield in the future, but whether or not it is actually meant to kill a lot of innocent civilians, and that is the real question, we don't have a reaction yet from casualties, we don't know how successful hezbollah's attacks were. we have seen a couple of videos going around, showing them being shot out of here, you know, utilization of some of the israeli anti-air systems you know, like david's sling

these others, very sophisticated weaponry that, so far kept israel from really being struck too hard, at least not that further south, like where i am now in tel aviv. whether or not that can still be in play, if hezbollah and iran choose to use a volley, a swarm of missiles and drones to evade those anti-air systems, this is all up in the air and that is going to determine how much longer this last and who else becomes. >> from your month of reporting most recently from lebanon, what would you say the agitated state or the war stance of hezbollah is right now? >> i can tell you that hezbollah was basically in the ground, we didn't really get a chance to speak with them on previous trips to lebanon and over the past year we have spoken to hezbollah, we interviewed top officials. the last month they didn't make themselves available, they wouldn't with us, but we heard from sort of pro hezbollah media

repeatedly saying the same thing. presenting your hearing from the israelis now. that they don't want a wider war, but they are determined to take revenge for the assassination, those 20 assassinations i was talking about and they are determined to present a kind of deterrence. and it is important to know here, richard, that this is not the classical war of the kind that you and i might be familiar with. this is not necessarily strategic. nobody here is trying to take a heel and hold it, or take a city, this is about symbolic strikes, retribution, it is about trying to impose deterrent on one's enemy, to show that they have strength, to show that they are capable. so, in a way, that makes it complicated and more difficult to understand, we don't know what kind of signals all of these parties, the israelis, the iranians, hezbollah are going to try and send, we also don't know or be able to back down and still save face. that is a really crucial

question here, because a lot of this is about trying to just show, to demonstrate power, rather than to actually, like i said, achieve some sort of strategic goal. you could say that showing deterrence is a strategic goal. this is not about gaining land, it is not about taking a city or holding a hill. this is a different kind of fight, and it could be just mostly symbolic. so, whether or not hezbollah can fire drones whether or not they can turn back to their people in lebanon and throughout their region, is the main force of resistance against israel throughout the entire region. whether they can use this attack and turn back to their people and say, look, we have done this, we have done what we said we were going to do, it was effective, it was devastating against our enemies, the israelis, that is going to be a question that will determine whether or not they are satisfied with a limited military engagement or a volley or barrage of missiles and drones, or whether or not they feel like they have to

expand and shoot further into israel. right now at doesn't necessarily seem like that is the case, but that could change at any time. richard? >> what does this say if anything, about the israel- hamas deal. >> welcome it does say on one level that it looks like if the israelis were right, they were preparing to attack today and that is why they launched their preemptive strike. that hezbollah probably felt as though that deal was just dead in the water, it wasn't going to work. we already heard from the iranians and hezbollah, again, not hezbollah directly, but pro hezbollah media in lebanon, essentially saying, we are going to give these peace talks a chance, we are going to wait to see if they failed, and if they do, then it sounds like we are going to attack and we heard from hezbollah a couple of weeks ago saying that prolonging the punishment against the israelis was part of the punishment, i am paraphrasing here. so, this is something they have been considering, you know, that they were just going to kind of wait to see, they were

going to keep israel on edge and one of their goals, from the beginning, has long been to try and distract the israeli military from their operations in the gaza strip. that is what they have been sing repeatedly ever since october 7th, and one of the reasons why they are maintaining their attacks over lebanon's southern border into israel was to try and distract the israeli forces from doing operations in the gaza strip. whether or not that satisfies them, that is another thing. so, basically it sounds as though, by launching this, if they were pushed to launch it by the israelis or they had, in fact plans to do this morning, that they did not feel as though these negotiations were going to work, because up until now we have been hearing from hezbollah that they were going to give the negotiations a chance, and certainly hezbollah, the iranians, they don't like to be seen as the aggressors despite how we might proceed them in united states, they do feel as though they have a lot of the weight of global public opinion in their favor, in favor of the people of the

gaza strip. they don't want to be seen as spoilers to a peace process, it looks as though, for several weeks, they get that peace process those negotiations some kind of chance, even though hamas hadn't been present this week where we have seen these negotiations continuing. it seems as though this might be an indication that it hezbollah, at least, has decided that these negotiations are not going anywhere that it now is the time to attack. >> matt, stand by, i want to get your thoughts on what this means for co-benjamin netanyahu, based on what you just said, but i also want to bring in retired four star general and terry analyst, mccaffrey and chad jacobs and middle on the recipient. colonel jack, react to what matt was reporting on for stair. and that is this question of what will be next and we are going to have to wait the next 24 hours, in terms of what we have been reporting. we will get more information from the sources of the attacks. meeting hezbollah, and idf is a list out what they have used in

part, as well as the success, or lack thereof, for instance, the latest information from the idf, colonel jack is about 100 fighter jets of their air force attack and destroyed thousands of firing canisters that of hezbollah's, as well as most of them, they were saying most of these canisters, these missile canisters were aimed towards the north of the country, as well as some, towards central israel as well. what you make of that? >> well it seems like a limited attack. obviously, but they have got lots and lots of missiles. it is interesting to note that i think somebody and it may have been hezbollah, specifies that a majority of those vehicles were many of them were terribly inaccurate, especially in contrast with drones, there

is something to keep in mind here there have been-- hezbollah has been attacking over a long period of time. there haven't been 300, like this, but they have been continuous attacks for a long period of time, so we should not expect there to be absolutely nothing taking place on the border of the next 24, 48, 72 hours. the second thing to keep in mind is that, although we like to think that there is a great deal of control, by hezbollah over its own forces by israel over its own forces frequently, when things escalate, they escalate, because of a mistake, a mistake in intention, a mistaken objective, somebody down at the lower end of the food chain makes an error, if there is an attack on a population center in israel that results in significant results results in significant

civilian casualties then there will be huge escalation and it will be difficult to control after that. a lot of the talk that is taking place now on both sides is to try to make sure that that's doesn't happen again. but it is always possible that somebody will make the mistake, and it will escalate rather quickly richard. >> general, as you look at the information coming in as colonel jack and i were just discussing part of that or a list of their targets, and they were very clear in saying that we targeted 11 specific sites. all of which, and i was listing some of them earlier, in israel and others, but these are all bases, does that-- this is consistent of what we were talking about last time, in that they are not targeting

civilian locations, but then we saw this other latest note, from the idf, saying they were looking at central israel, not sure of the military bases in that area. >> will look, as matt pointed out, in an excellent assessment, what we are seeing now primarily is signaling political attention using a military force, it is very difficult to do. it tends to be escalatory, not proportional, but backing off to read recent are the discussion, the wars about gaza. the war was about seven october, and the murder, rape, torture of hundreds of millions of citizens, following which, the idf, trying to destroy hamas, with some success, perhaps 15,000 fighters killed, they are

enmeshed in tunnels, they are enmeshed in the civilian population, schools and mosques, and u.n. facilities, and it has resulted in devastating destruction in gaza, maybe 60% of the structures are destroyed or damaged. hamas thinks it is winning the information more. i think it is too. so, right now, when you look at the idf, can you imagine that i would agree to allow hamas uncontrolled access throughout gaza and total ability or reestablish smuggling networks that broaden the majority of the weapons used against israel. it is not going to happen. where is a peace force, where is a u.n. sponsored receivership of gaza, the thought of a two state solution is silly for the coming 10

years. who is going to govern the two state solution? hamas? so, i think diplomacy, as unrelenting as the biden administration has been to try and get this right, the chairman of jcs, general brown is in israel i think, right now. they are trying to achieve some kind of a cease-fire, but i don't see the politics, diplomacy lighting up to achieve that. so, we await, like 1914, a war that no one wants, but potentially could ignite and get out of control. >> general colonel standby we have mark with us, we are just getting into msnbc and msnbc news, mark? >> what is, what is interesting, and i think will certainly have some impact on my israeli war cabinet on channel 12 news a reputable new site 6000 rockets and drones at

israel, which is, of course, different than the 300+ that the idf has reported were fired. if that number is true, that is truly a plan to overwhelm israel's defense systems, so, this is kind of the things that , at a crisis like this, where information is coming in fast and furiously, that is something that of course the work on it will take a look at, in terms of a future response, again, i agree with this, i agree with all of the analysis so far, it seems to have been more of a limited hezbollah strike and military targets, which again, would not necessarily draw israel's redline, but if this number, 6000, is actually true, that might make a different ballgame. we will have to see what

happens over the next couple of hours. >> irrelevant piece of information, not independently verified by msnbc news, but still very relevant coming a respectable journalistic organization. >> general mccaffrey, what was your thought on that potential of 6000 originally planned, but maybe because of idf's preemptive attack, again mentioning deployed as well as other employment, 6000, could you your iron don't have detected israel from that number? >> well, look, first of all, i don't think they didn't fire the 6000, because the preemptive strike, that didn't happen. for some reason they drew back, if that number is correct. there's two things that hezbollah can do. which is, not only fire thousand of missiles for rocket it a, but to prolong it over months, which would force these

israelis into a ground offensive into lebanon. i don't think they want to do that. but that is the capability meanwhile, the pressure, internally, on the israelis is, and by the way, benjamin netanyahu might be widely despised by the voting population in israel, but they are aware that he is a soldier at his heart, and he is not going to rest, until he saves hamas is unlikely to be able to carry out another strike on israel. so, i don't see any reason why this struggle is going to get better in the foreseeable future? what i hope is, and i think mark's experience in the region is terrific, that, for now, we are still signaling intent. the only mistake israelis have made, which in my view, a major one, was going in and killing hezbollah, leaving official in

charge of their military command and also nailing a guy, in downtown, tehran, which was a hamas senior negotiator for a potential cease-fire. so, that through kerosene on the fire. see if that would dampen in the coming days. >> i want to go to matt bradley. met matt, how would this read for israelis, is it a matter of we are used to be back and forth in the northern regions of israel, lebanon and has a lot, will this be a spike for them and if so, what does this mean in terms of pressure for an israel-hamas deal. it is difficult to say what they are thinking. it depends on who you ask.

and israel, like now, like america, is hopelessly divided. divided along culture war lines, as well as along political lines, and a lot of the divisions have really been opened up, by what we have seen, since october 7th. also don't like benjamin netanyahu, one of the most right-wing cabinets in israel. they really want to see hamas completely destroyed in the gaza strip. what they have been saying, benjamin netanyahu has been going back and forth, he has kind of cited with his most right-wing cabinet members on this. those same voices are also saying they want to see hezbollah in lebanon. severely punished for their attacks ever since october 7th on north northern israel and there are a lot of israelis who don't want to see war, they don't want to see an appended

conflict that could bring in other partners that could truly damage israel's reputation in a way that is far beyond what has been. it is difficult to imagine the level of steam that israel has been sinking to in the past several months, in terms of just the public, the global public opinion. but then there is also the population in the north, this is tens of thousands of people who have been displaced from their homes, ever since the day after october 7th, october 8th, when hezbollah first started firing in northern israel. those people have not been home , and school is starting in september 1st. and there's a lot of pressure on benjamin netanyahu to push hezbollah back from the border, the northern border from israel , lebanon's southern border, and to keep them from launching missiles into northern israel. this is an enormous population of israel, who wants to go home. and i have also mentioned, when talking about this that we also have to mention that there are

hundreds of thousands of people displaced in southern lebanon. they too love to go home, and they are-- there have been a lot of attacks that have killed civilians in southern about lebanon as well. so, we are talking about two populations of people in an international border, both of whom anxious to get home, both of whom have been seeing violence the past several months, and there's a lot of pressure on political leaders on both sides, hezbollah also has been facing a lot of pressure from the lebanese public, the lebanese public who has been enduring now five years an economic disaster in their country that is what led to power outages in lebanon just a couple of days ago. there was essentially a national power outage, there was just no power available for several days and everybody had to or rely on generators, which is how the lebanese tends to get their power anyways, because of their financial crisis. so, we are talking about two countries in desperation. both of them feel badly that my.

both of them are sing publicly and privately. if they do not want a wider war. and we are seeing retaliation, retribution. both of them have to answer, not just to their broader publics, they also have to answer to radicals and extremists, who are, in certain ways pushing towards war, and hezbollah leaders who are furious with the assassination last month in beirut, and there are politicians here, in israel who say we need to knock them back along the southern border, and we need to show them that we will not take anymore cross- border firing. but at the same time, like i said, there are huge populations in both countries who do not want war, and there are population throughout the entire middle east who are worried that a war between hezbollah and israel could involve iran, could involve the united dates.

and like all of these wars, all of these conflicts we have been sing since october 7th, it is the civilian populations carrying a horrific, nightmarish burden. richard? >> colonel jack, reflecting on what he was just telling us and drilling down on what the day today is like, militarily, in the north of israel, with hezbollah, and we are showing some new video of what happened, during this latest conflict. the northern part of israel, a piece of video in addition to this from msnbc news. but the attack that we are talking about today, which is the 302 rockets, according to hezbollah, the 100 jet fighters sent out and the preemptive attack by the idf, this particular incident, how-- put that into context, versus what we have been seeing on a very low level hum, between conflict

and skirmishes, between hezbollah and idf on that northern border, anyway, how much greater is what we are seeing today? colonel jack? >> i can talk. if you need to go to me. >> hello, can you hear me? >> we have got you know, colonel, >> so, yeah, it is marginally different. and you talked earlier about 6000, it is significant. so, we got a quantitative change. eventually you have qualitative change. but 6000 that is qualitative change, but we will continue to see this as kind of cross-border and general mccaffrey brought up a very interesting point of

concern. attacks on a large-scale population center is unlikely to happen, it might happen through a mistake as we discussed earlier, but remember that these attacks that hezbollah has specified are going into military installations, that may continue, in fact it may continue, but that doesn't mean it is going to make life any easier for either israel or hezbollah. remember that these military installations are extremely difficult to move. they know exactly where they are and they will continue to attack them. if these assets in northern israel or move. so, we are liable to see this level of attack across the border for quite some time.

someone will decide that enough is enough and we will see an escalation, richard. >> sorry, colonel, thank you for that, colonel, appreciated. let's go to the nbc news correspondent in jerusalem, the idf just had a news conference. we also know the war cabinet, as we have been showing you earlier, that meeting happened as well. what did you learn from that news briefing coming from the idf, daniel? >> so, the idf saying that shortly before 5:00 a.m. this morning they detected that rocket launchers in southern lebanon were aimed and pointed at israel, so israel in response targeted 40 launch areas across southern lebanon, in what they described as large concentrations of rocket launchers. in southern lebanon in civilian areas. when asked exactly what

hezbollah was targeting, they would not confirm, only that it was targeting mostly northern israel and central central israel. but targets the hardware now they will of course to strike, because of the israeli operation this morning. they say that there was very little damage in northern israel, following the hezbollah response. is this round over? the military spokesperson was asked and they don't know just yet. both sides are assessing the situation, but both are ready for-- certainly israel is ready for every scenario. also asked about the situation at the airport, we have seen this many times before in the past, whatever something like this happens. they close it, temporarily, and whenever they have reason to believe that central israel might be struck, then they pause operations at the airport. asked if their american allies were notified of the israeli operation early this morning, no yes-- no confirmation, only

to say that the value-- their closed-door meetings with their american allies we heard from the lebanese state media that an israeli was killed from a strike in southern lebanon as well. so, to recap from the idf this morning, that they launched an attack, shortly before 5:00 a.m. , after detecting i rocket launch pointed at israel. and this was across 40 launch areas in southern lebanon. richard? >> 40 launch areas. danielle, thanks for that summary of what you learned during the idf's news briefing. matt bradley, as we listened to some of the details there, 40 locations that were hit, again, reaffirming and restating that the targets they believe that hezbollah was targeting our northern and central. what do

you make of that readout that danielle just gave us? >> what is interesting, what you really have to pay attention to, when talking about the situation is, whether or not this is qualitatively or quantitatively different from what has been going on over the past 10 months. almost 11 months now. we have always been seeing quite a bit of violence over israel's northern border with lebanon. between hezbollah, the idf. if it weren't for the appalling violence that we have been seeing in the gaza strip and the attack on october 7th this would be a huge headline throughout the world. and this is a war that has been going on on a smaller scale that has been dwarfed by the fighting in the gaza strip but it is still a war. and what we are seeing just this morning so far is quantitatively a lot bigger than what we have been seeing already. at and it involves a lot more israeli equipment, a lot more

hezbollah sites that have been targeted, hezbollah has said these hundreds of rockets, which are not particularly, as we noted just a moment ago, they are not particularly sophisticated weapons, they were the same kind of weapons that were used all the way back in 2006. we know that hezbollah now has much more sophisticated weapons, so, they are keeping those more sophisticated weapons and reserve so far. so, again, what we are seeing is a much bigger quantitatively bigger fight than what we have seen so far. qualitatively, geographically, it is still very much the same, still very much the same type of fighting we have been seeing, even if there is just more of it. we haven't been seeing huge population centers being struck, which would be very unusual for hezbollah, because unlike hamas, hezbollah has stated that they do not strike civilians, they almost always intentionally try to hit israeli military targets and of course, they do hit and kill civilians, but they make a point, over and over again to say they only try to confine

their attacks to military targets in israel. so, we have seen a quantitative, but not a qualitative increase. it is still the same footprint, it is still the same style of fighting we have been seeing. it looks as though the big, big weapons that we have been seeing in hezbollah, we know that they have been boasting about, that they are still being kept in reserve. again, richard, hezbollah has stated that this is the first phase of their retaliation. we haven't seen an answer from the iranians, which is what a lot of people are really, really fearing, what the united states are fearing, they have said not one, but two aircraft strikes from the middle east provide deterrence to prevent israel from attacking directly, like the kind of did back in april, a symbolic barrage of missiles, all of which were shot down in the air. so, we still haven't seen people thrust or what could become the full thrust of hezbollah's retaliation, or iran's retaliation for those

assassinations. whether or not we will see more, whether or not this is going to satisfy the iranians or satisfy the israelis, that is a political question and one that is going to have to be taken in the coming hours and days, by politicians, by officials who are in hezbollah, in tehran, elected leaders, here in israel, like benjamin yahoo. this is a government in israel that has long been encouraged by the public to take arc harsh action. it is very popular here. but at the same time there's a real, real desire to divert a larger war. so, ever since october 7th this is a country that is really wants to take vengeance against its enemies and to provide the kind of deterrence that prevent october 7th from happening again. what you don't hear from most israelis is that they want to see a regionwide war that involves the iranians, that involves other countries in the region. that would be a nightmare.

not only for the entire region, but also outside is really, as well. and that is why this is so important, the difference between quantitative and qualitative strikes. so far we have seen more quantitative, we have seen more weapons, we have seen more targets, we haven't seen anything that looks like it is a paradigm shift, in terms of the war that we have already seen since october 7th. >> mark, as we look at that readout coming out from daniele hamamdjian, that press conference there, that news briefing, it was asked, how they spoke? and had the idf spoken with allies, and in our conversation over this evening, the last couple of hours, we have heard reflections of what the biden administration has been doing, is doing, and should do. put that all together for us, based on what we have learned so far today. >> i think so much of this last 12 hours and in the future, so

much importance should be highlighted. there has been extensive cooperation in the u.s. embassy in israel the long historic highs between the cia. i work with masai frequently during my time at the cia, this is going to be everything from civil intelligence and of course , i think of,, not only from the israel face, but the intelligence community phase, and some of the blame should lie with u.s. intelligence as well, because they missed, which was, in essence, a small hamas army invading israel. but the israelis really had picked themselves up by the bootstraps, and they their ability of intelligence to preempt an attack that certainly could have killed scores of israelis that could have caused the mass casualty attack that would have plunged

the region into war, and i think the intelligence community and my colleagues those that i worked with in israel they did some incredible work and i think it just shows we can be counted on in the days and weeks to come. >> with this be an intelligence share mark? >> absolutely. and in terms of, where an attack is, i think there would be immediate sharing. now, there would be systems which we actually collect together with the israelis. phone calls made, either way, and of course intelligence presence in israel, as well, but when it comes to conditions like this, where you have this really robust strike package of u.s. naval assets and air assets in the region, there will be sharing on a 24-hour basis and i imagine that is what happened here. >> we want to bring back

general mccaffrey here. general, as we have been looking at the response to this, much of the u.s. do, is this a failure? or a success of the united states positioning and leveraging in the region. and this is when we are starting to bring in the very issue of gaza into what this means for gaza in terms of the attack. what should the united states do? we did get a statement from lloyd austin. >> welcome there's no question that the biden administration has been relentless, particularly secretary of state, antony blinken, but also lloyd austin, in trying to cool the tensions, the vitriol and the military strikes on one another that may trigger a massive war, and so far it has actually held. i think the consensus in the evening so far is that, look, this is a limited strike, a preempt by the israelis. it did not cause significant damage to

either side. it is not even remotely a major attack by hezbollah, who could clearly have fired 6000 rockets the first day, and possibly overwhelmed the israeli air defenses. people might also add that we keep watching that beautiful tel aviv skyline in the back, not one missile so far, except those fired by hamas, out of gaza has gone after israeli civilian targets. so, so far deterrence is holding on both hezbollah and israel. the question is, can it last? what is iran's intention, hezbollah is an shiite terrorist organization largely equipped and to some extent commanded, frequently, by the iranian revolutionary guard.

so, i don't think we know how it is going to come out in the long run. in the short run it looks like it is over, no one really wants a regional war to break out. but it is clearly possible. you know, when you are firing missile and military targets, particularly ground forces, your ability to protect themselves is enormous. if you just lay down in a trench 122 rocket attacks which i have undergone many times are highly unlikely to kill you. when you go after populated areas, like tel aviv and jerusalem you are going to kill a lot of people and knock back a lot of infrastructure, but it also rarely breaks the will of the civilian population. hamas is still fighting in gaza with allegedly tens of thousands of civilian and hamas casualties. so, the upside of this war hopefully will remain under control. there's going to be a lot of people in misery if it

extends to civilian cities in israel. >> colonel jack, we got the response from the defense secretary of the united states, lloyd austin. in short, say we support exactly our allies in the region, and should that statement be extended, should we hear more, or do you expect that we might hear more, from the biden administration or defense secretary? >> i think we are unlikely to hear any more than that, the administration said that exactly time and time again. we moved an additional forces. the forces that we have there, in general, particularly the sea forces are from deterrence and that is not to deter hamas or hezbollah, or anybody else, it is to deter iran from getting involved. for its part, iran doesn't want to get involved, perfectly

happy to let its proxies do its bidding, we have seen this even in the gulf, with the movies. so, the administration is unlikely to say anything further. its message is already clear and there is no need to embellish it, >> matt bradley, as we think about today's conflict, what has happened from the idf and hezbollah, the question might be, is there a hangover, if you will, from 2006, as you were saying earlier giving us context of what this means, historically? we are only going back what? within the last two decades? that is a major reflection point, a major memory, for many israelis about what they don't want to do again, as well as those who are in lebanon, they don't want to see that again. >> yeah, i mean one of the hangovers, as you mentioned, the hangover is really on the lebanese side, where the infrastructure in southern

lebanon and southern beirut was raised. it had to be rebuilt with money outside the country. there were thousands of people who were killed, more than 1000 lebanese people who were killed, mostly civilians. it added to the country's economic woes that persisted until today. that has really been felt in lebanon. here in israel, one of the things that they keep-- the lessons from 2006 we keep hearing is that it shows that the withdrawal of the israelis from lebanon only six years earlier, in 2000, and you hear this from israelis, especially on the right wing, saying that, when you withdraw from a place, like gaza, like lebanon you are inviting rocket fire, that was one of the lessons we keep learning from the early 2000 so that there needs to be more of a robust or aggressive israeli response to this kind of thing, and that is why we are still hearing a lot of this bellicose language from the right, here in israel. we need to punish hamas, punish hezbollah, so that is one of

the lessons learned, here on this side of the border, here in israel. and another thing that a lot of israelis and a lot of lebanese were really worried about is something called the doctrine, when you heard from last month, that was in the neighborhood of dahiya in southern beirut and the dahiya doctrine is a leading put politician here in israel, he was leading member of the idf back then, 20 years ago. the doctrine says that, if hezbollah were to attack then the modus operandi in response needs to be to destroy lots, huge parts of lebanon, in order, not just to punish hezbollah, but to punish the lebanese people, who, according to this doctrine, allow hezbollah to persist, allow us to have ministries, ministerial post, seats in the parliament in lebanon, allows it to

organize huge efforts for hospitals and schools in southern lebanon, all to benefit the shiite community which is normally historically been a deprived community in lebanon. so, the idea behind the dahiya doctrine, we can't put it in any nicer terms, it is collective punishment for the lebanese people for whatever hezbollah decides to do. the lebanese people know that. they know that is the modus operandi of the israelis, and they know that. it could pull them into a war. >> thank you for that context. thank you for your reporting, matt bradley and daniel as well, colonel jack, thank you all from 30 rock in new york. our coverage continues after a break. after a break. no, no! (man 2) what's my next step? oh! ugh.

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i am richard lui from 30 rock and we are having rolling

breaking news coverage coming out of the middle east. israel launching preemptive strikes inside lebanon, targeting hezbollah. secretary of defense lloyd austin speaking with the israeli ministry of defense to discuss the defense against liz boldon 80s -- lebanese hezbollah tax. secretary austin, commitment israel's defense against attacks by iran and its regional partners and proxies. hezbollah on its part saying it is avenging, responding to the killing and assassination of its number 2 leader. and then being cleared to state what it's implements have been. over 300 rockets fired from the south of lebanon by hezbollah into the northern parts of israel into a list of 10 or 11 military bases and in addition to that drones were also activated in this military operation. i want to go to our msnbc

national security analyst marc polymeropoulos. thank you for joining us. as we get more details in, we are understanding the numbers that we are hearing straight from hezbollah, as i noted, as well as the basis. you and i were talking last hour about this. what do you take from the are g out of hezbollah and the idf for that matter, and where we might be? will this escalate? >> first and foremost, as i said previously, incredible intelligence collection here. it allowed the israelis to preempt and thwart any mass casualty event which would've caused a tremendous escalation. hezbollah's statement is significant. when they are naming the military targets, they are doing so because that was what

israel would, in some ways, be okay with. israelis warned publicly and privately that attacks on civilian infrastructure, civilian targets, would cross a redline. in some ways hezbollah's statements like this and the specificity indicate this round is over. as we have seen the israelis announced that in their view, it's not a stand down but this exchange is finished. the question is, will this be enough for it to satisfy their constituency? on the israeli side, and this is something that is quite significant, there are calls within the israeli infrastructure to actually strike back the defense minister even since october 7 been calling for strikes on hezbollah. there's going to be a domestic

issue inside of israel and where this goes from hill. the hezbollah statement is significant and signifies this round is over. let me add one quick point. there's some talk over, is this going to be it? the one piece that we sometimes forget is it has an extensive over military structure. it also is a terrorist organization and they have a terrorist network overseas. the possibility of asymmetric warfare, hezbollah, energizing acts external to hit israeli soft targets overseas which would take months overtime. that's something we may see as well. when they talk about the things happening in the future, they could be referring to that. >> what would you say is there were stands right now?

could be active? the opposite of that? looking at the four months that have passed since the assassination, the killing of hezbollah's number 2. what would you say there were stances today? >> everyone is on a war footing. there has been reports the leadership is gone to ground. ultimately, hezbollah has never done anything what near what it's capable of. at the end of the day, a massive war between the two sides, we talked to this could be harmful to the israelis because hezbollah arsenal. if the israeli start hitting beirut and taking to the infrastructure there, they will suffer tremendously. remember -- >> and community organization as well. >> to is proud to's iranians want to lose their surrogates in the region?

there's a lot of reasons why this should de-escalate right now. we will see in the next 24, 36, 48 hours on whether both sides would be able to step back. i think they will. i think this is over for now. >> you can't read video but we were showing video issues of the war cabinet meeting. what is your assessment of what they might be discussing in that meeting? >> first of all, there's going to be a lot of outrage among the israeli public. gaza is different than what is happening in the north. there's outrage in israel, 50,000, 60,000 israelis okay go back home to their houses. there is support, frankly, for extended israeli military action against hezbollah if not a controversial topic like it is when it comes to gaza.

there will be voices within the israeli cabinet, and it might be the defense minister who has been a hawk on hezbollah. there might be places to take stronger action. prime minister netanyahu who has been justly criticized in so many ways for what happened in gaza, he has been less of a proponent of going after hezbollah in lebanon. he will send, in israel everything leaks. you will see leaks of what happened, but ultimately, the question will be how much pressure is on the government to do more after what happened over the last six or seven hours. >> why wouldn't benjamin netanyahu want to be more of a hawk when we're talking about hezbollah based on his political survival. >> this gets into looking at him over the long term. he's never been summoned to take bold, courageous, and his steps from a military standpoint.

there has not been, for example, this long desire in some circles, israeli military strike on iran, he is not gone after hezbollah again. in my view and the view of many others, he is the one interestingly enough when it comes to the north is less inclined to take action. he is the opposite of that. he was the one after october 7 who advocated not only going into gaza but going after hezbollah in the north as well. i think there's some parts of the national security structure that understands there was reference in the last hour, can they sustain this? can the israeli military, they've not been billed for long con -- conflicts. can they sustain a ground campaign. the israeli economy is suffering as well. there's a lot in terms of a tenured military and economy that will not be able to

sustain another front. a lot of reasons not to do this. >> the general said it would have to be on the ground in your loading to that difficulty. let's bring in msnbc matt bradley in tel aviv. what do you know right now? what are you learning in terms of the attack that happened overnight? >> reporter: which we are hearing, the attack happened a couple of hours ago. what this was was an preemptive attack by the israelis and we've been hearing that from the israelis government. they were doing this in their capacity, their legal capacity to defend themselves. they launch this preemptive attack because they said they had intelligence it indicated hezbollah was planning a large- scale attack. this predawn strike that involved what sounds like many different fighter jets by the israelis crossing over and striking targets that belong to hezbollah in southern lebanon. this was then, according to hezbollah which issued their own statements with attacks

that fired against northern israel, hezbollah statements didn't mention they had been fighting against income israeli preemptive strike. whatever happened, israel is the one who shot first and they said doing so basically to avert an large-scale attack by hezbollah which then occurred according to hezbollah. hezbollah said not that they were striking back but that they were doing this as part of their long plan and vowed attack against the israelis and revenge for the killing for fuad shukr. in a neighborhood last month. it was something we have known about for a while. the region has been preparing for this. this was thought to be, there was talk this could be done by hezbollah first because hezbollah, like hamas in the gaza strip is an iran backed group. iran vowed to retaliate and attack israel for the case because of the assassination of a top-level hamas official in

the iranian capitol to run . a couple of hours after fuad shukr was killed in beirut last month. this has brought the whole regents to the precipice of a regionwide war and one of the reasons why the united states has parked military assets and addition to what they already have in the region. it's incredibly dangerous. as i talk to you now, we don't know the full contours of the scope of this attack. it looks as though the israelis has only hezbollah targets in southern lebanon, that's what they are saying. it looks as though hezbollah has only military targets in northern israel. we have to put this in context. at the same time, the fear was this would expand to include all of lebanon for all of israel for the entire middle east. so far it seems to be somewhat contained into regions of lebanon and israel that have

been the scene of violence ever since october 7. geographically, we haven't seen us expand its footprint beyond what has already been in play ever since october 7. remember, as we been watching the horrific violence going on in gaza and the horrific attacks on october 7, we have been seeing a much smaller although still very costly a violent fight over the border, northern israel and southern lebanon. we are still singh this morning despite this talk of a massive attack and preemptive strike by the israelis, the fact we are seeing what looks the same footprint and not a whole lot more than the same level of fighting we have already seen, it's still unclear whether this will expand to whether this could be the regionwide war everyone has been fearing. >> i went to get your read on this. we just got this and from the idea. this is a statement and i'll get the details. 100 fighter jets of the air force attacked and destroyed thousands of hezbollah's firing

canisters, most of them aimed toward the north of the country and some also towards central israel. this statement, a mirror of what we saw from hezbollah in a way that they are giving a lot of specificity is one of our analysts was saying as you may have heard earlier is they were saying with all of this detail, it seems to indicate that this is now done. i wanted to get your read based on what you know. there's the war cabinet meeting. there is with their implementing on the ground further israelis in terms of their day of operations, what they can and cannot do. what's the rate of will there be more? >> reporter: that is something everybody is asking and that's the million-dollar question. we are about to hear from the idea. they invited us to join a digital press conference where we will hear, i believe, from rear admiral who is the main

spokesman for the idf and he will describe the situation. the real question is whether or not this expands. what we have described and what the israelis described his an increased level of fighting over israel's northern border with lebanon. whether or not it's a qualitative increase to the level that would invite a wider war and when i was in lebanon i spent the last month waiting for the offense. we been trying to gauge whether that would involve what looked like happened on -- in 2006 when the israelis launched a ground incursion into lebanon. where they leveled much of southern lebanon and destroyed -- destroyed infrastructure and killed more than 1000 lebanese mostly civilians. that would be a disaster for lebanon and the region. the problem is hezbollah has become more powerful in the last 20 years. it has with the cia and of the

speculate could be a missile arsenal of more than 150,000 missiles, many of them targeted. more sophisticated then 20 years ago. this is a question that will have to be answered as we see it. we don't really know. as this is going on, it's unclear who is holding back whether the israelis will be holding back waiting to see what hezbollah does or whether hezbollah will decide to fire up their entire arsenal before it is destroyed by the israelis and whether the iranians are going to wait and. we heard mac from statements that these are the first phase of the retaliation of the it's -- assassination of fuad shukr so we could be seeing more. in tel aviv, as you can see, there are no air raid sirens. the airport was closed very briefly. it is reopened, as far as we understand. it's hard to tell whether this is it or whether it's going to

expand. back in april, there was a similar set of events where there was this unprecedented volley of attacks from the iranians after the israelis attacked a diplomatic mission belonging to the iranians. those missiles that were shot down by the united states and other allies including the jordanians in the region. that was more of a symbolic kind of retaliation. there's been talk about whether what would happen now that this retaliation from hezbollah would be more symbolic or a real example of a lethal strike meant to try not just to deter the israelis from striking further afield or whether cement to kill a lot of innocent civilians? that's the real question. we don't have beat out on the casualties. we don't know how successful hezbollah's attacks were against northern israel. we've seen a couple of videos showing it shot out of the air and the utilization of israeli

anti-air systems like david slaying in these others, very sophisticated weaponry that so far kept israel from being struck too hard, at least further south like where i am in tel aviv. whether or not they can still be in play of hezbollah and iran choose to use a volley of a swarm of missiles to invade antiair systems, it's up in the air and that will determine how much longer this lasts and who was becomes involved. >> from your month of reporting most recently out of lebanon, what would you say the agitated state or war stance of hezbollah is right now? >> reporter: i can't tell you hezbollah was basically at ground. we didn't get a chance to speak to them. i spent a lot of time in lebanon and we spoken to hezbollah and interview top officials. over the last month, they did not make themselves available

and would not speak to us. we heard from pro hezbollah media repeatedly saying the same thing. the same thing you are hearing from the israelis now. they don't want a wider war but they're determined to take revenge for the assassination that i was talking about. they are determined to present a kind of deterrence. it's important to note that this is not a classical or of the kind that you and i might be familiar with. it's not a necessarily strategic, nobody's trying to take a hill and hold it or take a city. it's about symbolic streaks, but retribution. it's about trying to impose deterrence on one's enemy to show they have strength, to show they are capable. in a way, that makes it difficult to understand. we don't know what kind the signals these parties, the israelis, iranians and hezbollah are trying to send a whether they can back down and still save face.

that's a crucial question. a lot is trying to show, to demonstrate power rather than to achieve a strategic goal. showing deterrence is a strategic gold you could say. it's not about gaining land or taking over a city. it's a different kind of fight. it is one that could just be mostly symbolic. whether or not hezbollah can fire these drones and missiles and they said they fired more than 300 now. whether they can turn back to their people in lebanon and throughout the entire region, because hezbollah -- throughout the entire region. whether they can use the tech and turn back and say, look, we have done this. we've done what we said we were going to do. it was effective and devastating against the israelis. that will be a question that will determine whether they are satisfied with a limited military engagement, with a

barrage of missiles and drones or whether they feel they have to expand and shoot further into israel. right now it doesn't seem that is the case, but that could change at any time. >> what does this say, if anything, but the israel/hamas deal? >> reporter: it does say on one level that it looks like if the israelis were right that hezbollah was preparing to attack that and that's what they want their preemptive strike, that hezbollah probably felt as though that deal was dead in the water. wasn't going to work. we heard from the iranians and hezbollah, not hezbollah directly but throw pro hezbollah media essentially saying, we will give these peace talks a chance. will try to wait and see if they fail and if they do, then it sounds like they were going to attack. we heard a couple of weeks ago, that prolonging the punishment against the israelis was part of the punishment, and him paraphrasing. it is something they were

considering that they were going to wait to see, they were going to keep israel an edge of one of their goals from the beginning has long been to try to distract the israeli operations in the gaza strip. that's what they have said repeatedly that one of the reasons why they are maintaining their attacks over lebanon's southern border into israel was to distract the israeli forces from during their operations in the gaza strip. whether that satisfies them? that's another thing. they basically, it sounds as though by launching this, they were pushed to launch by the israelis as they had planned on doing it, that they did not feel as though the negotiations were going to work. up until now, we had been hearing from hezbollah that they were going to give the negotiations a chance. certainly, hezbollah, the iranians, they don't like to be seen as the aggressors despite how we might perceive them in the united states, they do feel as though they have a lot of

the weight of global public opinion in their favor, favor the people of the gaza strip. they don't want to be seen as well as to a peace process. it looks like they gave the process, the negotiations, chance even though hamas hadn't been present in cairo this week but we are seeing negotiations continuing. it seems this might be an indication that hezbollah at least decided the negotiations or maybe not going anywhere and now is the time to attack. >> standby. i want to get your thoughts on what this means for benjamin netanyahu based on what you said but i want to bring a retired four star general, jack jacobs. reacting to what matt was reporting right there and that is this question of what will be next and we will have to wait 24 hours in terms of will there be more? we are getting more information from the sources of the attacks

meaning hezbollah and idf as they list exactly what they have used in part as well as the success or lack thereof. for instance, the latest information we got from the idf colonel jack is 100 fighter jets of their air force attack and destroyed thousands of firing canisters of hezbollah as well as most of them they were saying most of these canisters, these missile canisters were aimed toward the north of the country as well as some towards central israel as well. what do you make of that? >> it seems like a limited attack, obviously. that got lots of missiles. it's interesting to note, i think, somebody, and it may have been hezbollah, specified the majority of those vehicles are many which are inaccurate,

especially in contrast with drones. there is something to keep in mind. hezbollah has been attacking over a long period of time. they haven't been 300 like this, but they have been continuous attacks for a long period of time. we should not expect there to be absolutely nothing taking place on the border over the next 24, 48, 72 hours. the second thing to keep in mind is that although we like to think there's a great deal of control by hezbollah over its forces, by israel over its forces, frequently, when things escalate, they escalate because of a mistake. a mistake in intention or objective. somebody down at the lower end of the food chain makes an error . if there is an attack on a population center in israel

results in significant civilian casualties, then there will be huge escalation. it will be difficult to control after that. a lot of the talk that's taking place now on both sides is to try to make sure that doesn't happen. it's always possible that somebody will make a mistake and it will escalate rather quickly. >> general, as you look at the information coming in as colonel jack and i were discussing, part of that includes a list, and this is coming from hezbollah, a list of their targets. they were very clear in saying we targeted 11 specific sites. all of which, and i was listing some of them earlier, maren base in israel, and others, but these are all bases.

this is consistent with what we were talking about, they are not targeting civilian locations. then we saw this other latest note from the idf saying they were looking at central israel. i'm not sure the military bases in that area. >> look, as matt pointed out, excellent assessment, what we are seeing primarily is signaling political attention using military force, and it's difficult to to. it tends to be escalatory not proportional. backing up, to re-center the discussion, the war is about gaza. the war was about seven october in the murder and torture and abduction of hundreds of israeli civilians. following which, the idf has tried to destroy hamas with

some success, perhaps 15,000 fighters killed. they are enmeshed in tunnels and enmeshed in the city and population, schools and mosques and facilities. it has resulted in devastating destruction in gaza. 60% of the structures are destroyed or damaged. hamas thinks it is winning the information war. i think it is too. right now, when you look at the idf, can you imagine that they would agree to allow hamas uncontrolled access throughout gaza ability to ambush, smuggling networks abroad in the majority of the weapons used against israel? it's not going to happen. where is a piece force? where is a un-sponsored receivership of gaza, the talk of a two-state solution is silly

. who will govern the two-state solution? hamas? i think the diplomacy is unrelenting as the biden administration has been to try to get this right. the chairman general brown is in the mideast it right now. they are trying to achieve some kind of a cease-fire, but i don't see the politics, diplomacy lining up to achieve that. we away like 1914, a war that no one wants but potentially could ignite and get out of control. >> standby. i want to go to marc polymeropoulos with news we are getting and to msnbc and nbc news. >> what's interesting and i think we will have some impact on the israeli war cabinet is

not the reputable new site, they are reporting that hezbollah was planning to fire 6000 rockets and drones at israel which is far different than 300 plus that the idf has reported were fired. if that number is true, that's truly a plan to overwhelm israel's air defense systems. these are the things that a crisis like this, information is coming in fast and furiously. that is something the war cabinet will look at in terms of a future response. i agree with this and all the analysis so far as it seems to have been more of a limited hezbollah strike and they're talking about trying to hit military targets which would not necessarily cross israel's redline. if this 6000 is true and that's something that will influence israeli decision-making, that could be a different ball game.

that is something we will have to see what happens. >> relevant piece of information but not independently verified by nbc news but relevant coming from a respectable organization. general, general mccaffrey, which are thought on the potential of 6000 originally planned but maybe because of idf's preemptive attack, the 100 fighter jets that were deployed as well as other implements, 6000, could the iron dome have protected israel from that number? >> first of all, i don't think they didn't fire that thinks -- 6000 by idf fighters. for some reason they drew back, if that number is correct. i think there's two things that hezbollah can do which is not only fire thousands of missiles or rockets a day but to prolong it over months which would force

israelis into a ground offensive in lebanon. i don't think they want to do that yet, but that's a capability. meanwhile, the pressure internally on the israelis is and netanyahu may be widely despised by the voting population in israel, but they are aware he is a soldier at his heart, and he is not going to rest until he thinks hamas is unlikely to be able to carry out another strike on israel. i don't see any reason why this struggle is going to get better in the foreseeable future. what i hope is and i think marc's experience is terrific, we are signaling intent. the only mistake the israelis have made, which in my view,

was a major one was killing hezbollah leading official in charge of their military and also nailing a guy in downtown tehran who is the hamas senior negotiator, in effect, for a potential cease-fire. that threw kerosene on a fire, and we are seeing if they can dampen these tensions down in the coming days. >> i want to go back to matt bradley. how will this read for israelis? is just a matter of we are used to the back and forth in the northern regions of israel and lebanon and hezbollah or will this be a spike for them as they look at it, and if so, what does it mean in terms of pressure for an israel hamas deal? >> reporter: richard, as you know and when you're talking of any political, it's difficult to say what they are thinking.

it depends on who you ask and israel like america is hopelessly divided. divided along cultural war lines as well as political lines. the divisions have been opened up by what we have seen since october 7. we have seen those right-wing people, many of whom also don't like benjamin netanyahu even his a most right- wing cabinet in israel, they want to see hamas completely destroyed in the gaza strip before they have a p steal the get free the remaining hostages. it's something a lot of the right-wing cabinet ministers have been saying, benjamin netanyahu has been going back and forth on this a little but he has cited with the most right-wing cabinet members on this. the same voices are saying they want to see hezbollah in lebanon severely punished for their attacks ever since october 7 on northern israel. there's a lot of israelis who don't want to see war.

they don't want an expand a conflict that could bring in iran or other partners that could damage israel's reputation throughout the world in a way that is far beyond what it already has been. it's difficult to imagine when you see the level of his team that israel has been sinking to in terms of the public, the global public opinion. there's also the population in the north. tens of thousands of people have been displaced from their homes ever since the day after october 7, october 80s when hezbollah first started firing at northern israel. those people have not been home. school is starting. it will be starting september 1. there's a lot of pressure on benjamin netanyahu to push hezbollah back from the border, its northern border, as lebanon's southern border and keep them from launching vessels into northern israel. it's an enormous population who want to go home. i have to mentioned when talking about this, we have to

mention there are hundreds of thousands of people a weapon displaced in southern lebanon. they too want to go home. there have been a lot of attacks that have killed civilians and southern lebanon as well. we're talking two populations of people straddling an international border both of whom are anxious to get home and who have seen violence the past several months. there's a lot of pressure on political leaders on both sides, hezbollah has been facing pressure from the lebanese public. the lebanese public who has been in during five years of an economic disaster in their country that has led to power outages. when i was in lebanon a couple of days ago, there was a national power outage. no power available for several days and everybody had to rely on generators which is how the lebanese tend to get their power anyway these days because of this financial crisis. we're talking two countries in a situation of desperation both

feel badly victimized and both are saying publicly and privately, they do not want a wider war. and yet, here we are. retaliation, retribution. both have to answer not just to their broader public but they have to answer to radicals and extremists who are pushing both sides towards war. hezbollah leaders furious that the assassination of fuad shukr last month in beirut for suburb of beirut. there are politicians in israel who say we need to show hezbollah who is boss. we need to knock them back from the southern border and we need to show them we will not take anymore cross-border firing but at the same time, there are huge populations in both countries who do not want war and populations through the middle east were worried a war between hezbollah and between

israel could involve iran in the united states and it could expand, and like all these wars and conflicts we haven't seen since october 7, it's the civilians who carry the horrific nightmarish burden. >> colonel jack reflecting on what matt was telling us and drilling down on what the day- to-day is like militarily in the north of israel with hezbollah. we are showing new video of what happened during this latest conflict. again, northern part of israel, we have a piece of video wall so showing-the. we are just getting this in. the attack we are talking about today which is the 300 rockets according to hezbollah and the jet fighters sent out an preemptive attack by the idf, this particular incident, but that into context versus what

we have been seeing on a low- level home between conflict and skirmishes between hezbollah and idf on the northern border anyway. how much greater is what we are seeing today? colonel jack? >> i can talk. if you need to go to me. >> can you hear? >> we got you now. >> it's marginally different. when you talked earlier about 6000, that is significant. you get enough quantitative change, eventually you have qualitative change. 6000, that's qualitative change. we will continue to see this kind of cross-border attacks for some time.

general mccaffrey brought up an interesting point we ought to consider. attacks on large-scale population centers unlikely to happen. and might happen to a mistake as we discussed, but remember, these attacks that hezbollah has specified going into military installations, that may continue. it probably will continue. that doesn't mean it will make life any easier for israel or hezbollah. remember these military installations are extremely difficult to move. they know where they are and they will continue to attack them. if they are moved, if the assets in northern israel are moved, intelligence on the hezbollah side will be able to pick them up very easily. we are liable to see this level

of attacks across the border for some time. eventually, someone may decide that enough is enough and we will see an escalation, richard. spent sorry, thank you for that. i want to go to msnbc correspondent in jerusalem. idf had a news conference in the war cabinet as we have been showing video, they meeting happened as well. what did you learn from that news briefing from the idf? >> the idf said shortly before 8:00 a.m. this morning, they detected rocket launchers in southern lebanon were aimed at pointed at israel. israel in response targeted 40 launch areas across southern lebanon and what they described as large concentrations of rocket launchers in southern lebanon located and embedded in civilian areas. as what hezbollah was targeting?

they would not confirm. only targeting mostly northern israel and central israel. targets were not able to strike because of the israeli operation this morning. they say there was little damage in northern israel following the hezbollah response. is this round over? the military spokesperson was asked and the answer is they don't know just yet and both sides are assessing the information about the ready dad israel is ready for every scenario. he was asked about the situation at the airport. have seen this many times in the past whenever something like this happens. they close it temporarily and when they have reason to believe that central israel may be struck, then they pause operations at the airport. asked if american airlines were notified of the israeli

operation early this morning, no confirmation. only to say they have closed- door meetings with american allies. just moments ago, we hear from the lebanese state media that one was killed in an israeli strike in southern lebanon as well. to recap, from the idf this morning that they launched an attack shortly before 5:00 a.m. after detecting that rocket launchers were pointed at israel and it was across 40 launch areas in southern lebanon. >> 40 launch areas. daniele hamamdjian, thank you for the summary of what you learned during the idf's news briefing. matt bradley, as we listened to some of the details there, 40 locations that were hit. again, reaffirming that the targets they believed that hezbollah was targeting was northern and

central. what do you make of that readout that we were just given. >> what's interesting, you have to pay attention when talking about this situation is whether or not is qualitatively or quantitatively different from what's been going on the past 10 months. it's a question we have always been seeing quite a bit of violence over israel's border with lebanon and hezbollah in the idf. if it weren't for the appalling violence we have been seeing in the gaza strip and the attack october 7, this would be a huge headline throughout the world. this is a war that's been going on on a smaller scale that has been dwarfed by the fighting in the gaza strip. it is still a war. what we are seeing this morning so far is quantitatively a lot bigger than what we have been seeing already. it involves a lot more israeli

equipment and hezbollah sites have been targeted, hezbollah said they fired these hundreds of these rockets which are not particularly, as we noted a moment ago, they are not sophisticated weapons. the same weapons used back in 2006. we know hezbollah has much more sophisticated weapons. they are keeping the more sophisticated weapons in reserve so far. what we are seeing is a figure quantitatively bigger than what we've seen so far. qualitatively, geographically, it's very much the same. it's the same fighting have been seeing even if there's more of it. we haven't been seeing huge population center which would be unusual. unlike hamas, hezbollah stated they do not strike civilians. they almost always intentionally try to hit israeli military targets in the hit and kill civilians but they

make it a point over and over of saying they only try to confine attacks to military targets in israel. we are seeing a quantitative but not a qualitative increase. it's the same footprint. still the same style of fighting. it looks as though the big weapons we have been seeing, hezbollah has an boasting about but they are being kept in reserve. richard, hezbollah stated it's a first phase of their retaliation. we have not seen an answer from the iranians which is a lot of the people are really fearing and what the u.s. is fearing. they said not one but two aircraft carrier strike groups to the middle east to provide deterrence to prevent the iranians from attacking directly like they did in april with a symbolic barrage of missiles which all of which were shot down in the air. we still have not seen what looks like the full thrust of what could be the full thrust of hezbollah's retaliation or

iran's attack for -- whether this is going to satisfy the iranians are satisfied the israelis, that's a political question. it's one that will have to be taken in the coming days by politicians, by officials who believe hezbollah are officials in tehran are democratically elected officials like benjamin netanyahu. this is a government in israel that has long been encouraged by the public to take harsh action. it's popular here but at the same time, there is a desire to avert a larger war. ever since october 7, it's a country that wants to take vengeance against its enemies and provide the deterrence that would prevent october 7 from happening again. what you do not hear from most israelis is they want to see a

regionwide war that involves the iranians and other countries. that would be a nightmare for the region outside of israel and for israelis as well and that's why it's important to note the difference between quantitative and qualitative strikes. so far we've seen more quantitative. we have seen more weapons, more targets, we have not seen anything that looks like it's a paradigm shift in terms of a war we've seen since october 7. >> marc polymeropoulos, as we look at the readout coming from daniele, the idf news briefing, it was asked, had a spoken with allies? in our conversation this evening, the last couple of hours, we have heard reflections of what the biden administration has been doing. is doing and should do. put that together for us based on what we have learned so far today? >> reporter: so much of this,

particularly the last 12 hours but what will happen in the future, so much importance should be highlighted in terms of intelligence sharing. there's been extensive cooperation. there's intelligence cell at the u.s. embassy in israel and the ties between the cia and mossad. this will be passing everything from intelligence to human intelligence reports to imagery. i think october 7 and the trauma not only to israel in the israeli community intelligence face. some blame should lie with u.s. intelligence because they missed what was a small hamas army invading israel. but israelis pick them up by the bootstraps and their ability to collect this intelligence to preempt an attack that could have killed scores of israelis,

that could've caused a mass casualty attack to go to plunge the region into war. a tip of the cap to the my old colleagues in the cia and those i work within israel because they did incredible work. it shows they will be counted on in the days and weeks to come. >> would this be an intelligence share? >> absolutely. in terms of where an attack is pending, there would be immediate sharing. there could be systems which we collect together with the israelis and phone calls made, either way , and as the intelligence presents, u.s. intelligence presents in israel as well. when it comes to issues where you have this robust package of u.s. naval assets and air assets in the region, there will be sharing on a 24-hour

basis and i imagine that's what happened here. >> i want to bring back general mccaffery. as we have been looking at the response to this, we should the u.s. to? is it a failure or success of the united states positioning and leveraging in the region? grandma starting to bring in the issue of gaza into what this means for guys in terms of the attack, what should the united states to? we did get a statement from lloyd austin. >> yeah. there's no question the biden administration has been relentless, particularly the secretary of state blinken. but also lloyd austin and trying to cool the tensions, the vitriol and the military strikes on one another that may trigger a massive war. so far, it has held. i think the consensus of the evening so far is, it's a limited strike, a preempt by

the israelis. it did not cause significants damage to either side. it's not even remotely a major attack by hezbollah who could clearly have fired 6000 rockets the first day and possibly overwhelmed the israeli air defenses. i might also add, that we keep watching the beautiful tel aviv skyline in the back, not one missile so far except those fired by hamas out of gaza is gone after israeli civilian targets. so far, deterrence is holding on both hezbollah and israel. the question is, can it last? what is iran's intention. hezbollah is a shiite terrorist organization that is largely equipped into some extent commanded frequently by the iranian revolutionary guards.

i don't think we know how it will, and the longer run but in the short run it looks like it's over. no one really wants a regional war to break out, but it's clearly possible. one other thought. when you're firing missiles at military targets, their ability to protect themselves is enormous. if you lay down in a trench, 122 rocket attacks, which i have undergone many times, are highly unlikely to kill you. when you go after populated areas like tel aviv or jerusalem, you will kill a lot of people and knocked down infrastructure. it also rarely breaks the will of the civilian population. thomas is still fighting in gaza with allegedly tens of thousands of civilian and hamas casualties. the upside of this war,

hopefully, will remain under control. there will be a lot of people in misery if it extends to civilian cities in israel. >> colonel jack we got the response from the secretary lloyd austin saying we support exactly our allies in the region and should that statement be extended? should we hear more at do you expect we should hear more from the biden administration or from the defense secretary? >> i think we are unlikely to hear more than that. the administration has said that time and again. we moved in additional sea forces. the forces we have there in general, particularly the sea forces are for deterrence. that's not to deter hamas or hezbollah or anybody else. it is to deter iran from

getting involved. for its part, iran doesn't want to get involved. it's happy to let its proxies do its bidding. we have seen this in the gulf with the houthis. the administration is unlikely to say anything further. it's message is clear and there's no need to embellish it. >> matt bradley come as we think about today musky conflict, what happened from the idf and hezbollah, the question might be, is there a hangover from 2006, as you were saying earlier as you are giving context, for what it means historically. were only going back two decades but it was a major inflection point, major memory for many israelis about what they don't want to do again as well as those who are in lebanon. they don't want to see that again. >> reporter: one of the hangovers on the lebanese side where the infrastructure in

southern lebanon and southern beirut was raised and had to be rebuilt with money from outside the country. there were thousands of people who were killed, more than 1000 lebanese people killed and mostly civilians. it added to their economic woes that persist until today. that is felt in lebanon. in israel, one of the things , one of the lessons we keep hearing is it shows the withdrawal of the israelis from lebanon only six years earlier in 2000 and you hear from israelis especially the right- wing sing when you withdraw from a place like gaza, lebanon, you invite rocket fire and that was a lesson we keep learning from 20 years ago from the early 2000's that there needs to be more of a robust response to this and that's one of the reasons why we are hearing a lot of this bellicose language from the right in israel.

we need to punish hamas, hezbollah. it's one of the lessons learned on the side of the border in israel. another thing a lot of israelis and lebanese were worried about is something called the dahiya doctrine. when we mentioned fuad shukr who was assassinated, that was in the neighborhood of dahiya. it's the stronghold of hezbollah in beirut . the dahiya doctrine was devised by a leading politician in israel. he was a leading member of the idf back then, 20 years ago, the dahiya doctrine says if hezbollah were to attack, then the modus operandi needs to be to destroy huge parts of lebanon. not just to punish hezbollah but to punish the lebanese people who according to this doctor, allow hezbollah to

persist and allow it to have ministries, ministerial posen seats in the parliament in lebanon. eliza to organize huge efforts for hospitals and schools in southern lebanon to benefit the shiite community which has been a deprived community in lebanon. the idea behind the dahiya doctrine, we can put it in nicer terms, it's collective punishment for the lebanese people for whatever hezbollah decides to do. the lebanese people know that and they know it's the modus operandi and they are terribly worried that hezbollah could drag them into another war that would make 2006 look like child's play and that's the concern over the border in lebanon. >> as always, thank you for that context. i want to thank you for your reporting. daniele hamamdjian as well and marc polymeropoulos, general mccaffery, colonel jack, thank you well. i am richard lui and dark coverage continues after a break. es after a break.

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