crisis, devastating wars, terrorism, the israeli lobby, crackdown, diplomacy, israel, lebanon tensions.

going to saudi, then to israel, then to romala, all yours.

hello and welcome to press tv spotlight and thanks so much for being with us, well after more than three months of waging gen side on

gaza, the israeli regime has not reached any of its goals in the strip, it has not destroyed the resistance, nor has it been able to free its captives and the resistance is inflicting bitter bitter battle up. on them, so what should the regime do next? well, it must find a way to get out of this while trying to save face. how about waging a war on lebanon and hezbollah? could that even be a possible option? well, we're going to look at this on tonight's spotlight. i'd like to welcome my guests to the program, julia kasim, journalist and political analys out of beirot, and zakir ahmed. matyet, attorney, activists and political analys out of johannesburg. thank you both for being with us. uh, i started off in beirout and julia. according to the washington post uh, article, u.s. secretary of state anthony blinket is in the region to decrease tensions and the

possibility of israel waging war on hezbollah. do you think that blincon really wants to dissuade the regime from expanding the war? are your analysis of it? "the constant flying in uh from uh us officials, eu officials like joseph, eu's foreign affairs uh representative uh coming in and out to lebanon, primarily the they're they're coming for the purpose of uh begging hazballah to uh to basically conceed to israel's demands of um..." withdrawing from its own territory and its own border, which it is protecting from zionist aggression, um, and we've seen since october 8th, um, the hazballah has been effective in, basically

destroying all of the zies entities security infrastructure across the border, and that has made the the science entity furious and of course more... insecure than ever with 250 thousand of its over half million settlers in the uh northern area of occupied palestine alone forcibly um you know left the area evacuated the settlements and they're not coming back um unlike the temporary evacuations of uh at most 100 thousand or so in the southern border of uh labanon so of course with this uh security infrastructure complete be destroyed um with lot of uh thousands and thousands of soldiers which it's not admitting to um injured at least 1200 which uh we can estimate up to 4,00 killed um lot of that has been the success of the lebanese hazballah resistance from the

north which is put the occupation an extremely insecure and extremely straine position um fighting on another front at the same time ' you know getting destroyed it is getting destroyed in gaza, so now that there is uh this defeat in gaza that um that has had the occupation withdraw from from uh the gaza strip um now it wants to focus on trying to um recover the the inevitable losses from what it calls uh the northern front the area with hazballah as we can see. bit more in the show uh get a little bit deeper involved than that, well zakar, according to reports, blincon is concerned that the expansion of the war would bring in iran and the united states, your thought about your thoughts about this, i think it's already a global

war, the islamic republic of iran has established numerous people in the region, we're talking about, hazballah, the brothers of allah to aid the palestinian people, we know that the establishment of the quds force with its primary mission as described by sasanlah is the army of cods, it's for the liberation of palestine, and this is point that unifies not just the people of the middle east, but all peace loving people that believe in justice, there has to be justice, it can be no peace without justice and no justice without return. that being said, when we look at what is happening with the united states, this particular war that has been waged on the people of ghazza has been funded, supported and planned by the united states, this is very clear from the military support, the large numbers of ships that have been providing military supplies to israel

and the backing of two aircraft carrier battle groups to support israel's genocide on the palestinian people, so to argue that they don't want it escalate whilst they are fully... gaged as one of the global superpowers, is falsehood, what it is doing right now is that israel is depleted, israel is lashing out and as a result we saw reckless actions on the part of the zionist entity by assassinating commander salah lauri in bairut and by doing so it naturally expands the field, we see the expansion taking place as we speak right now, sirens are going off in the golan, there is possible infiltration of drones from that quarter or missiles so and we know that iraq has fired a advanced cruise missile and there were explosions in the port of hyfa today, so the

war has already expanded and this argument that they trying to contain it, i think it's false, because israel is a wild animal that cannot be contained. well, julia, secretary general of hezbullah said hasan nasrullah has said that if israel wages war on lebanon and the resistance will remove all of its limits to wage war against the... israeli regime, what do you think that means? so what we saw yesterday for example is uh through hit 62 rockets on one of the highest point surveillance bases that is responsible for every one of these genocidal war planes um their location and and basically the their reach from lebanon to cyprus to to syria to occupied palestine um so ' as nas said similarly speech over a month prior, all

options are on the table, if the zionist entity wants to to provoke and wants to expand its expand its genocide and and completely have no limits to how it's going to um how it's going to retaliate um in in the wake of like this huge loss in gaza um of course there is going to be necessary deterrance against that, there's going to be necessary resistance to that. um, while hasballah's moves are calculated, it doesn't necessarily mean that there's going to be um no equal force or no retaliation for um these string of assassinations or or the non-stop aggression that the design entity is uh going to take. so nasralah has made that clear, he's made it clear in a previous speech where he set the civilian for a civilian equation, uh, it doesn't mean it's going to be necessarily the the predictable and immediate

response, but it is definitely he is setting the equation for there to be um a response and in showing um from the attack on the um hernon intelligence base that hasbullah is capable of wiping out all of the design entities intelligence, security, air. air fields um so this is this is got them thinking twice and and i think that right now the science entities a standcill um as to if it wants to immediately uh put pull america into backing um this rabid frenzy that it wants to take out on on the resistance forces in the region as a last effort to remove their their power or if it wants to try to find and and scramble for some kind of an' exit strategy, well zakar, the american defense intelligence agency has said that if

the regime was to wage war against lebanon, it would be very difficult for it to win because his forces would be spread to thin due to war in gaza. i mean, your overall thoughts about the regime trying to go up against hazbullah? hazballah is much stronger than the brothers of qasam and saraya and ghazza, in fact hazballah's capabilities. as some of the largest weapons cashes are held by a non-state actor in the world and we look at the measured response of hazbullah with regards to the transgressions committed by the zionist entity, we look at the accuracy with which hazbullah has responded a perfect example is the targeting of the iron dome battery and they fired basically two guided artillery shells, these artillery shells struck the iron dome battery. that completely took it offline and exposed uh the north in

part to fire from hazballah. we look at the response now uh with regards to the miron site and the intelligence headquarter and we look at how they struck that particular site with artillery uh with atgms and guided missiles uh by the looks of it looks like the cornet missiles as well as rocket fire and the precision with which hasballah hit is an indicator to israel that this is not going to be one where they can carpet bomb area and try and achieve some degree of deterrance, it's not possible with hasbal. hazballah has precision guided munitions, we know it's been a concern for israel for many years and to go up against hazballah in head to head fight would be suicidal for the zionist entity, however what we are seeing now, the escalations of aggression against lubnan is merely to appease the zinist population, the

political movement, particularly individuals such as mudrich, they're not part of the war cabinet, they have been creating a huge fus and rukis that hazballah is getting away from israeli reprisal, hence this is attempt to try and appease the population, from a military perspective, israel is losing on the ground, in fact they almost lost one of the senior commanders, the commander general moshe chik, he was almost struck within 80 gm in gaza in shashaya, so the kassam brothers almost wiped out the leadership of the israeli military planning force in the south. if this is the capability of qassam, we can be rest assured that any fight against hazballah will spell the end of the zionist entity. however, that is already on the cards, we see what is happening with regards

to ansar allah, we see the opening of the front with the brothers of iraq, and i think that israel has other option but to self-destruct, well julia, for three months now we've seen heizbullah uh attacking the israeli regime targeting soldiers and bases as well as other strategic areas in response to the regime's genocide in gaza, how would you assess hezbollah's role this last three months and helping to open another front um and and basically trying to help leave at least some pressure uh on gaza, you're... assessment of that its performance? yeah, as mentioned earlier, we can we can see the results for ourselves, half million settlers that are not coming back, occupied palestine um, the northern the border between north palestine and lebanon completely desecuritized, demonstrating its ability to

wipe out israel's air air fields air and... intelligence um and so on so forth, now that the zince entity has resorted to basically flying drones and cameras on on parachutes, because it it's cameras in security are been completely destroyed through a course of at least 637, i'm sure it's it's been more now the 700s attacks by husb which have been incredibly successful. um to the extent that that this is primarily the motivation for the the science entity to want to um pull america into backing an aggression against lebanon if it doesn't get its demand of pushing back past the latani in its own territory so this has all been incredibly successful and this

is only at barely overent of capacity. so one can really imagine if it if it goes just above 10%, 15%, how much that would really overwhelm the design entity in its current state, and this is primarily you know shows it's a testament to the not only the strength of law but the the the weakness of the of the science entity, well what's your overall assessment of the united states regarding? trying to expand the war even more so into lebanon, do you think washington actually is okay with this, or do they want to prevent it, or how do you see washington's real role in this? as i stated earlier, this entire plan to genocide the population of hazar was planned supported and funded by the united

states, the fact that they had brought aircraft carriers under the pretext of. the islamic republican and deterring hazballah is an indication that they had globalized the fight from the getco, however the united states is very quick to strike and to create the impression of deterents, but they would not want it to turn into a battlefield. this is why they are struggling so so much so in the red sea with regards to their coalition in securing the assets for israel, they have not been able to contain ansar allah and "the possibility of opening a fight up in the north, if the wildness of israel is allowed to rampage through the north, this would automatically draw the united." states into a new confrontation, they do not have the capabilities, they do not have the manpower, they do not have the supply, this has all been depleted due to the ukrainian war, and

the status of the ukrainian war is clear for all to see, the united states together with the european allies have lost that particular year, the strategic reserves have been depleted, israel was asked to give the strategic reserves to ukraine, that has been depleted and used up, and if they have if the... has to be an expansion both in iraq, in yemen as well as with regards to labanon, i believe that will bring the end of the empire, we have to look at the united states and israel through one lens as one entity, this would bring about the end of the higem germany, and i believe this is a deep concern for the united states, however because of the error that they have made at the very beginning, they have globalized this fight, and it's not a trajectory that can be changed very... quickly or anytime soon, it's already been stated by sad hasan nasara in his most recent speech, he said that this is a historic opportunity to liberate the lands

and that means that we are heading towards a globalized fight, battlefield on all fronts, and the united states is acutely aware of that, that is why they are trying so hard to have some sort of a peace deal, they talking about the day after after hamas after the governance uh of hamas in gazza, they're trying desperately to bring an end to this conflict, however israel due to its arrogance will not allow that, it needs to establish deterrents, and it's not possible. julie, your perspective, where do you see this going, um, if this war explodes even more than it has and involves more and more parties, i like to hear your assessment of what do you think is possibly to happen? yeah, so um, the what's the the current stuff is direct is trying escalate by bringing the

the united also to leader, i actually inspect a couple days ago be attacked, but so far. and the the unit in the face of a failed to assemble, that it even lost its deterrance power against the the huties, um, the the united states is bases, just like the the zince entity is being blinded in the the south lebanon north palestine border, you also see a reduced capability of the us to really um reinforce the the science entity's occupation in the region and its own occupation um in iraq and syria um because those bases have been hit um at least 110 uh

plus times um and finally it looks like the the the last step on this uh this whole ladder um of confrontation um as the us right now is relegated to a supporting and a reinforcing role um for the zinus entity um is in in the event that things would escalate to where itself is brought into directly confront iran. um this is something that israel is desperately trying to uh get to, it wants to bring in the the us to this direct confrontation, because ultimately iran is its target, it sees it as like the the head of um all of the the forces of resistance that are that are curring away existence um and so

that's that's kind of how things are expected to play out and and escalate um if if we see it uh going forth as it is okay we're keeping our eyes of course very closely on that appreciate both of you being with us on the spotlight julia cosum journalist and political analyst out of attorney activist and political analyst out of johannesburg and thank you viewers for being with us on another spotlight, i'm marza hashimy, hope to see you right here next time, goodbye.

and then to saudi and then to israel and then to romala and your all yours.

nearly 200 people are killed in the latest israelit striks on the gaza strip. the overall palestinian death toll is approaching 23. the islamic resistance in iraq says it's recently launched a long-range missile toward the israeli city of haifa. an human rights group says the palestinian prisoners and