of hello and welcome to press tv spotlight, i'm marse hashim, thanks so much for being with us, well after more than three months of waging genocide 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 upon 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 casim, journalist and political analyst out of beirot, and zakir ahmed mayat, attorney, activists and political analys out of johannesburg, thank you. thank you both for being with us. i started off in beirout and julia. according to the washington post uh article, us secretary of state, anthony blinket is in the region to decrease tensions and the possibility of israel waging war on hezbollah. um, do you think that blincan 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 representative, coming in and of out to lebanon, primarily the they're coming for the purpose of begging hazballah to to basically conceed to israel's demands of um, you know, 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 zinus entities security infrastructure across the border and that has made the the zinus entity furious and of course more insecure than ever with 250 th00 of its for half of

million settlers in the northern area of occupied palestine alone forcibly you left uh the area evacuated the settlements and they're not coming back um unlike the temporary evacuations of uh at most 100 thousand or so on the southern border of lebanon so of course with this security infrastructure completely destroyed um with lot of uh thousands and thousands of soldiers, which it's not admitting to, um, injured, at least 12,00, which uh, we can estimate up to 4,00 killed, 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 strained position, um, fighting on another front at the same time, you know, getting destroyed, it is getting destroyed in gaza, so... so now that there is uh this

defeat in gaza that um that has had the occupation withdraw from from the gaza strip um now it wants to focus on trying to um recover the the inevitable losses from what it calls the northern front the area with hazballah okay so i'm going to look it a little bit more in the show uh get a little bit deeper involved than that. well zaked, according to reports, blincan 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 shabi, hazballah, of the brothers of ansar allah to aid the palestinian people, we know that the establishment of the quds for. with its

primary mission as described by allah 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, there 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 hazza 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 uh of carrier battle groups to support israel's genocide on the palestine people, so to argue that they don't want it escalate whilst they are fully engaged as one of the global super power 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, but assassinating commander sahuri in beirout 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 missile, so and we know that iraq has fired a advanced cruise missile and they were... explosions in the part 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 hasannasrullah 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 hazballah through hit 62 rockets on one 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 nasa said similarly speech. a month prior, all options are on the table, if the zinus entity um wants to to provoke and wants to expand its expand its genocide and and completely have no limits to how it's going to 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 hazbollah's moves are calculated, it doesn't necessarily mean that there's going to be no equal force or no retaliation for these string of assassinations or or the non-stop aggression that design entity is going to take, so nasaralah has made that clear, he's made it clear in a previous speech where he set the civilian for a civilian equation, 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 has capable of wiping

out all of thesigns entities intelligence, security, air bases, air fields, um so this is this has got them thinking. twice and and i think that right now the zinus entities a standstill um as to if it wants to immediately uh put pull america into backing um this rapid 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 too thin d due to war in gaza. i mean, your overall thoughts about the regime trying to go up against hezbullah? hazballah is much stronger uh than the

brothers of qassam and saraya in ghazza. in fact, hazballah's capabilities are listed as some of the largest weapons cashes held by a non-state. in the world and we look at the measured response of allah with regards to the transgressions committed by the zinity, we look at the accuracy with which... has responded a perfect example is the targeting 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 the north in part to fire from hazballah. we look at the response now with regards to themron site and the intelligence headquarter and we look at how the... struck that particular site with artillery, with 80-gms in tank guided missiles, by the looks of it

looks like the cornet missiles as well as rocket fire, and the precision with which hazbullah 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 hazballah, 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 zianist population, the political movement, particularly individuals such as much, although they're not part of the war cabinet, they have been... creating a huge fus in rakis that hazballah is getting away

from is really 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 shashaah so the and 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, julie. "for three months now we've seen hezbullah 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, your overall assessment the its performance?" yeah, as mentioned earlier, we can we can see the results uh for ourselves, uh, half million settlers uh that are not coming back from occupied palestine, um, the northern uh, the border between north occupied palestine and lebanon completely desecuritized, um, hazballah demonstrating its ability to wipe out israel's air fields, air intelligence, um, and so on and so forth, um, now that... the zient entity has resorted to basically flying drones and cameras on on

parachutes because it it cameras in security are have been completely destroyed um through a course of at least 600 and 37 um i'm sure it's it's been more now the 700s attacks by husball which have been incredibly successful to the extent that that this is primarily the motivation for the the the science entity to want to um pull america into backing an aggression against lebanon um if it doesn't get its demand of pushing back um past the latani in its own territory so this has all been incredibly successful and this is only at barely overcent's capacity so one can really imagine if it if it goes just uh 10%, 15%, how much that would really overwhelm the

design entity in its current state, and and this is primarily, it 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 the united states regarding tel aviv, trying to expand the war even more so into leben? do you think washington uh uh 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 gaza was planned supported and funded by the united states, the fact that they had brought aircraft carriers under the pretext of deterring 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... battlefield, this is why they are struggling so so much so in the red sea with regards to their coalition and 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 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 war, 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

there has to be an expansion both in iraq, in yemen as well, as with regards to lapanon, 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 higemony, 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 anyt soon, it's already been stated by said hasan 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 of hamas in gaza, they are trying desperately to bring an end to this. like 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'd like to hear your assessment of what do you think is possibly to happen? yeah, so um, the what's the? this the current step is entity is trying escalate by bringing the the united also to leaders i actually expect a couple days ago to be attacked but so far and in the

face of a failed uh that it even lost its deterrance power against the the hoothis um the the united states is bases just like the the zins entity is being blinded in the the south lebanon north palestine border you also see reduced capability of the us to really reinforce the the science entities. occupation in the region and its own occupation 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 and um is in in the events that things would escalate to where itself is brought into directly confront iran. um, this is something that israel is desperately trying to 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 kosum, journalist and

political analyst out of beirot, zakir ahmed, my yet, 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.

we must not become part of south africa's problem, we must remain part of their solution. we must not aim to impose ourselves our solutions, our favorites in south africa. damn it, we have favorites in south africa. the... favorites in south africa are the people who are being repressed by that ugly white regime. we have favorites. i also want to say a word about the situation in israel. the more we learned about the attack. the

more horrifying it becomes, more than 1ous, 1,0 innocent lives lost, including at least 27 americans, these guys make, they make al-qaeda look pure, they're pure, they're pure evil, i said from the beginning, the united states, make no mistake about it, stands with israel, united states stands with israel. allah, allahu akbar.

the israeli occupation demonstrates its hattridge on houses of the lord. this mask was reduced to rubble by f-16 warget. their way led to the destruction of the houses around the most, causing the fall of martters and injuries amongst neighbors of the... the palestinians did not stand on the romans of the mask idly, but they created temporary amors that don't protect them from neither the cold of winter nor the heat of the summer.

your headlines on press tv, the gazas srift faces major health crisis as israel continues to pound the territories hospitals, taking the overall death toll to nearly 23. the islamic resistance in iraq says it has recently launched a long-range missile towards the israeli city of haifa and the israeli forces kill free palestinians including a 4-year-old girl after shooting at two vehicles a checkpoint near the occupied city of alkwoods.