♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ announcer: funding for presentation of this program is provided by...

woman: a successful business owner sells his company and restores his father's historic jazz club with his son. a raymond james financial advisor get to know you, your passions, and the way you bring people together. life well planned. announcer: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. announcer: and now, "bbc news" ♪ christian: hello. ♪ i'm christian fraser, and this is "the context." >> a large number of injured started coming to the hospitals. these injured people were primarily injured in the explosions of pagers they were carrying. >> the context for all of this is the conflict between

hezbollah and israel that has been going on since the day after the october 7 attacks by hamas last year. about any type of event that may cause further escalation, and it remains our message to both israel and the other parties that they need to do everything they can to try and reach a diplomatic resolution. christian: hezbollah infiltrated by israeli intelligence. the exploding pagers have injured thousands across lebanon, another escalation that puts the middle east on red alert. how did they do it? what are the implications? we will bring expert analysis. also tonight, the vortex in american politics. where is this cycle of violence taking us, and who is to blame? we will speak to robert reich,

former u.s. labor secretary. and home from work or work from home? how does britain get the best out of its workforce? a very good evening, welcome to the program. it may have taken you a few minutes to comprehend the news coming out of lebanon this afternoon. hezbollah fighters targeted by exploding pagers. there aren't many parts of the world where pagers are still a thing, but a few months ago the hezbollah leader hassan nasrallah called on his fighters, those on the frontlines, to stop using smartphones because israel, he said, had the technology to infiltrate the signal. it seems israel also had access to the company manufacturing the pagers, or some part of the supply line. each was fitted with a small amount of explosive that was triggered by a signal israel controlled. unwittingly, hezbollah have done israel's bidding, handing out pagers to loyalists who for

weeks would be carrying them on the person, until today when simultaneously they exploded. almost 3000 people have been wounded, including many standing near the target. a little girl is said to be among the dead. lebanon's health minister said the explosion was a major escalation in the region. he has been speaking on bbc's "news hour" program. >> we are seeing there are people who are old and people very young like the child that unfortunately died. and there are some of them who are workers. >> can i just ask you this -- it is 2024 and pagers are older technology, and we are told hezbollah uses them because they are more secure. do other people in lebanon use pagers? >> there are still in hospitals and of the hospital personnel who use pagers. but i cannot comment on this more simply because -- from the

health sector we were very much interested in. >> it is, though, a major security breach for your country, isn't it? >> i think it is a major calation at a time when everybody was hoping that things are moving towards kind of a cessation of hostilities or some kind of a cease-fire. this is clearly a move in the wrong direction. >> who do you blame for what has happened? >> well, i think the obvious corporate has to be -- the obvious culprit has to be the israelis, but i think the security people will have more to say on this issue. >> if that is true, though, how worried are you about escalation along lebanon's southern border with israel, with all the potential casualties that that might entail? >> well, in the health sector have been quite worried since day one, and that is why we have been holding these drills in preparation for

the health sector in lebanon, preparing for mass casualties that unfortunately we experienced today get lebanon is, as everybody knows, passing through multiple crises including a severe financial crisis. the ability of the health care sectors to bear more stresses is quite concerning. and that is why i really hope that a solution towards a de-escalation, a cease-fire would be the option that hopefully can't lead us out of this mess we are in. christian: let us go to jerusalem and speak to our correspondent. daniel, what has the response been from the israeli side, and why now? >> well, this actually been no response from israeli authorities at all. there has been no comment. the context for this, though, is that overnight there was an israeli security cabinet that made the return of israeli citizens in the north to their homes one of the four core war

goals in this war that started last october. it is the only one of the four goals to relate to the north of israel and not to relate to gaza or hamas. there has been an ongoing debate in israel about this conflict with hezbollah that started nearly year ago, started the day after the october 7 attacks. that what's happened in that period is that there have been daily cross-border attacks from hezbollainto israel and israel carrying out airstrikes and other things in lebanon. that means thousands of people on either side of the border had to leave their homes and have been displaced. israel -- within israel there has been a debate about what should happen, and there has been some arguing for a military operation that would lead to the creation of so-called buffer zones in southern lebanon that would be great hezbollah's capability -- that would degrade hezbollah's capabilities and

ability to strike in israel for that's the context. there has been fears of escalation, but from what hezbollah said today, they regard this as an escalation today from israel. christian: what about security there tonight? after the assassination of the hezbollah commander some weeks ago, security was stepped up in israel. how have they responded tonight? daniel: well, to be honest we haven't heard anything like that quite yet. there is clearly going to be a concern about what happens next. hezbollah have said that israel will pay a price for what has happened. and i think although there has been this conflict that has lasted nearly a year that involves thousands of cross-border attacks, i think it is fair to say that both sides have not been operating at full capacity. it's really a war, but an undeclared war. i think the fear is if they both go full capacity and go into a full war, we just don't know what is going to happen. and hezbollah has certainly been

regarded, certainly up till now, as a more powerful military force than hamas. it is trained by iran,t is thought to have better military capabilities. if there is an escalation, then really there is fears about what could happen next. certainly the united states has been quite clear in a statement released yesterday by the defense secretary of the united states warning against an escalation and the devastating consequences of people in israel and in lebanon of such an estimation. christian: daniel, thank you very much for that. that's get technical detail from frank gardner. they have well burnished reputation, shin bet and ma said, for target -- shin bet and mossad, for targeting enemies overseas, but i can't think of anything on this scale. it seems unprecedented, the way they have gone about this. frank: it is unprecedented in scale, as you say, but not in method.

back in january 1996, shin bet, israel's domestic intelligence agency, the equivalent of the fbi or mi5, they targeted a hamas bomb maker who had instructed a lot of people in suicide bomb making, and they got inside his mobile phone and were able to sabotage that with about 50 grams of high explosives, enough to kill him. in this particular case, this mass sabotage of thousands of hezbollah's pagers -- pagers, by theay, most of us, these almost belong in a museum, they are 20th-century technology. but they are one-way response communicators where they receive a message but cannot send one out. hezbollah had these, ordered them for their members because it was thought that as low-tech,

it would be much safer, they couldn't be interfered with by gps and therefore israel couldn't be able to track their methods. the pagers appear to have been tampered and inserted with 20 to 30 grams of military grade high explosive disguised as an electrical component. somebody got into the supply chain and was able to sabotage these on a massive scale, which is a severe intelligence blow to both hezbollah and to its backers iran. christian: not just that they intercepted the supply chain, frank, but there is a signal that presumably is sent to all the devices simultaneously. you are talking about a very complex multiagency operatn. frank: well, i don't know if it is multiagency, but certainly yes, whoever did this needed two things. they needed very good, timely

intelligence on what shipment was coming ordered by who, where it was going, when was the bt possibility, when was it at its most vulnerable in the supply chain to intercept it, and then the technical capability to do this. on top of that you need the logistical capability to source that military-grade high explosive. this is not something that can be done by an amateur actor, even if you were talking about two or three phones. it is still a professional job -- christian: but the signal was set -- frank: -- that it was israel behind us. christian: but the signal that was sent, without be the mobile phone operator -- wouldn't that be the mobile phone operator, or a signal that israel control themselves? frank: that i don't know, but what i'm told by experts in this field, and it's a murky field, all of this stuff, but what i've been told ithis area is it would have taken what is called an alphanumeric signal message, text messages sent to all of

these mobile phones which armed the miniature bomb, the miniature device inside it. and the next person to touch it would have triggered it. which is why it is not quite accurate to say they went off simultaneously. they all went off within a small time frame each other, but there was some time lag because not everybody immediately responded to that alphanumeric text message. ristian: right. you talked about the psychological blow to hezbollah and to iran, but specifically let's talk about iran, because ismail haniyeh was assassinated in the heart of tehran with a bond that had supposedly been hidden there for some time. if you suppose that most of the things that are supplied to hezbollah come via iran, there are going to be big questions tonight for the iranians, aren't there? frank: yeah, it's very clear,

christian, that both hezbollah and iran, the entire islamic republic security apparatus, are penetrated to some extent by the agents of their enemies. there is no question about that. july 30, the precision air strike assassination, which israel did claim responsibility for, in the southern suburb of beirut, they knew exactly where he was going and when. they got informants. for whatever reason, people who are recruited either by blackmail or by money -- i'm sure they will probably deny that, but there are various reasons people do these jobs. or it could even have been israeli mossad operative themselves. and then of course the severe embarrassment at a later fire ant -- a day later for iran that ismail haniyeh, the leader

of the political wing of hamas, who was there at the inauguration of the new president, is killed with a bomb repositioned in a guesthouse in the heart of tehran. extremely embarrassing for them. if you go further back in recent years, look at the assassinations of a number of iranian nuclear phycists, nuclear scientists who were suspected of being involved in a military program to possibly work with some kind of military nuclear capability that iran is suspected of having, which iran denies. for those have been laid at the door of mossad. clearly there is an ongoing israeli operation in both countries. christian: frank, thank you very much for that. let's go to lebanon and speak to the assistant professor of history with the american university of beirut. thank you for being with us. i want to get some impression from you of how widescale this was, because one of the videos our bbc verify team has been

looking at comes from inside the hospital, and you see injured and dead people in corridors and doorways, doctors squeezing past to treat them. we are talking about an attack that has affected hureds and hundreds of people here. >> well, the amount, the massive scale of this attack has extended all across lebanon all the way to adjacent syria. anywhere these pagers could be connected to the so-lled hezbollah network, they were the target of this attack. while many of the injuries did happen in the southern suburbs of beirut where the hezbollah stronghold is, hezbollah had to go outside its own safety zone to dispatch many of these injured people to other hospitals, because this attack has proven, contrary to what hezbollah claims, its so-called health care sector is not really geared towards such a massive attack, not to mention that many people had to donate blood because anyone who was in position of this pager which

belongs to the 20th century was targeted and their injuries were -- some of them were less fatal, but in general many of these people have been mutilated and many of them did lose their lives or even their limbs. christian: makram,ooking at has buhle's -- looking at has buhle -- looking at hezbollah's statement tonight, the group clearly sees this as an escalation. if you take on the minds of the israeli defense forces can you need some means of communication. they don't use smartphones, they don't have pagers. how do you do that with no communication? makram: you are assuming that has buhle -- has buhle -- hezb ollah wants to take israel on. lester has confirmed that the proxy militias are not there to fight israel but to be a forward militia to protect iran's interest. despite the fact that many

people claim that hezbollah has the technology to harm or destroy israel, their use of these low-tech or even inability to use smart technology proof they are consumers of technology, whereas israel at the end of the day are manufacturers of such intelligence and security apparatuses. if hezbollah or iran decide to use more sophisticated weapons, it is no longer a combination of hezbollah and israel but rather the confrontation of the international community, united states, and iran directly. christian: are you suggesting, if i'm reading right what you are saying there, is there are many people in lebanon who will now question the purpose of taking on israel in the international setting? do you think psychologically people would say this is a war and lebanon and hezbollah just cannot win? makram: it is a fight that should not take place, because hezbollah and nasrallah have

claimed the so-called war support for palestinians the people of gaza, and we see what is happened in the gaza, the entirety of the so-called iran proxies did not contribute to their fellow palestinians. at the end of the date hezbollah has proven it is all talk and no play, and iran has lost faced through the assassination of haniyeh, or what happened today, which is very much from a hollywood movie but transferred to the streets of berry. --beverage. -- beirut. christian: always good to talk to you. around the world and across the u.k., you are watching bbc news. a look at some of the stories making headlines here today. social-media app instagram has announced a boost in piracy and parental controls including an automatically restricted account for 13- to 16-year-olds.

the companies are under pressure to improve safety of their apps, with some considering an all-out ban on younger people. a liberal democrat leader has told his party's conference he will offer a positive alternative to the labor government's doom and gloom. he also urged the prime minister to take action to prevent a winter crisis in the nhs the parties celebrating the election of 72 mps in jy's election, a record number. and we have had confirmation tonight that the commonwealth games is returning to glasgow in 2026. the scottish government has agreed to stage a scaled-down event after a multimillion-pound investment was agreed with the australian authorities. the state of victoria pulled out as the host, citing rising costs. you are watching bbc news. last week president donald trump was on television vilifying democrats with false stories about migrants they had allowed

into the country who were not eating dogs and cats. in springfield, ohio, where the baseless story first emerged, someone began threatening to blow out hospitals and universities. the haitian migrants who are in america legally are too scared to send their children to school. days later, a disaffected former trump supporter hid himself away on the trump international golf course palm beach, florida, lying in wait for the president, evidently looking to take a shot. he was spotted and engaged by any collided agent-- an egalite agent-- eagle-eyed agent, a lucky break. donald trump blames democrats, democrats blame him. it is a vortex of resentment and hate that is threatening to spiral out of control. our next guest is a political commentator, robert reisch, a former secretary of labor in the clinton administration. you are very welcome to the program.

i read your piece this morning which racist some alarms about where american politics -- raises some alarms about where american politics is headed at the moment. let's start with your up-sum of the week. robert: it is a terrible week and that there is no excuse, no justification for political violence in any democracy. the united states does have a history of political violenc. four american presidents have been assassinated in history. but we have never seen anything like this in terms of two attempted assassinations of a republican or any candidate for office within two months. that is what has happened with donald trump. christian: i called it a vortex. what's feeding that vortex? who do you blame principally? robert: well, there's a lot of blame to go around. now, trump blames democrats. i honestly, and i am trying to

put my nonpartisan hat on for this, but the real source of a lot of the violent rhetoric in america certainly over the last eight years has been donald trump himself. i mean, after all, it was on january 6, 2021, that he incited his followers to go to the capitol and attack the united states capitol. he knew that they had weapons when he addressed to them and told them to go to the capitol. it was donald trump who mocked the near-killing of paul pelosi, the husband of nancy pelosi, the speaker of the house. it was donald trump who has threatened his general who he felt was disloyal to him with --

he said publicly he should be executed. he has set all sorts of things. oot looters and undocumented migrants are to be shout. -- shot. this is a man for whom violence and violent rhetoric comes as a second nature. just last week, two weeks ago at the debate he was talking about migrants in strength, ohio -- in springfield, ohio, eating pets, a completely ludicrous story that did cause bomb threats in springville, ohio -- christian: but there is something more sinister about this line of migrants, which you picked up this morning, and we have seen it in history, and it is that sense of the other, the outsider, and what they are capable of. and again and again he returns to that theme. how dangerous is that? robert: i think it's enormously dangerous, not only for immigrants to this country -- t's be very, very clear, the

united states, apart from native americans, is a country of immigrants. when you start demonizing people, when you start saying that immigrants or any group of people are subhuman, you are playing with fire. you are doing what dictators, certainly in the tragedy of the 1930's, did in europe. and you are in a sense creating a climate of potential violence. christian: how much do you blame the social-media companies? robert: well, they do take a share of the blame, as well as easy access to guns in the united states. there are a lot of potential sources of blame for this. but if you really want to say what's new, what distinguishes this period of litics from previous periods of politics, it is violent rhetoric, and it is

mostly, again, coming from the current republican candidate for president of the united states. christian: i just wondered if it was more in the face of people that it was in previous years. now it is ever present. there are a lot of people who look at this from the outside and wonder where it ends. i wonder if you thought about that. robert: well, if you want to be apocalyptic about it, you could say this ends in what donald trump is threatened if he doesn't get elected, and that is a bloodbath in america, a civil war. now, no one wants that, if they are rational. in fact, what we have to have in america, and democracy requires it, but not only does democracy require it, but humanity requires it, is peace and respect for other people, for institutions. we have to have much more trusted than we do have in american politics right now.

i've been in and around american politics for 50 years. i don't remember a period in which there has been more anger and distrust than there has been recently. christian: robert, we will have to leave it there. it's a fascinating article you wrote today. you can read it in "guardian" if you are interested. many things for coming on the program. robert reich, former labor secretary. on the other side of the break, we will talk about w announcer: funding for presentation of this program is provided by... financial services firm, raymond james. announcer: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

announcer: "usa today" calls it, "arguably the best bargain in streaming." that's because the free pbs app lets you watch the best of pbs anytime, anywhere.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ announcer: funding for presentation of this program