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life well planned. nicole: at bdo i feel like a true individual, people value me for me, they care about what i want, my needs, my career path, i matter here. 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" >> hello and you are watching " the context." on bbc news. >> israel has a responsibility to do everything possible to avoid civilian cavity -- casualties even if hamas was operating in the top -- in the hospital and attempted to use civilians in human shields.

>> this terror organization has hijacked aid, seizing it for their own purposes. >> some thieves are more emboldened than other. and the palestinian and the lebanese people are paying with their lives a price for this impunity. >> we are back into a kind of mode where we are seeing the americans quite publicly now trying to exert pressure on the israelis. >> good evening. as an emergency meeting of you and officials is called to discuss the war in gaza, america says that it made clear to israel that it must do everything it can to avoid civilian casualties. israel has called for more aid to help for those displaced in gaza. we will discuss where things

stand in a conflict that shows no signsf ending. and as the war continues on, we will be live in beirut. in the security brief, mikey k will dig deeper into the use of unmanned drones in the ongoing middle east conflicts. well, as we were saying let us start with developments related to the middle east. an emergency meeting of the united nations security council has been taking place to discuss the growing military in crisis. it comes as international pressure on israel continues. days after the u.s. secretary of state and defense threatens to pull military assistance to israel and less more aid enters gaza. the u.n. says some supplies are reaching the north of the territory. this comes after a fortnight when no aid were able to reach the people trapped. america's envoy to the united

nations called the emergency meeting and told them that the u.s. government made it clear to israel that it must do everything possible to avoid civilian casualties in gaza. linda: a "policy of starvation" would be horrific and unacceptable and would have implications under international law and u.s. law. the government of israel has said that this is not their policy. that food and other essential supplies will not be cut off and we will be watching to see that israel's actions on the ground match this statement. >> a view from the u.s. at the united nations. let us bring you up-to-date on what is happening in lebanon. israeli strikes are continuing. the u.n. peacekeeping force said that israel fired at one of its positions near a southern lebanese village. in southern lebanon, 16 people

have been killed including the mayor and israeli strikes. the local governor says that it hit during a meeting about humanitarian aid. israel says that it struck dozens of targets in the area. the iran backed militant group hezbollah says that it is engaging in close combat that -- clashes with the idf and it has fired rockets across the border. to discuss all of those developments, i am joined by a professor of political sciences at the american university. he is the author of five books incling "has blood: -- hezbollah: a mission to nowhere." i want to start with developments related to gaza with another strong warning from the u.s. to its ally, israel related to civilian casualties in gaza. it has only been a day since we were reporting about a letter

calling on more aid to enter the territory as well. i want to get your perspective from where you are in the region about where you see the u.s. in this equation. >> i do not know what the u.s. -- if the u.s. is capable of exerting pressure on the government of mr. netanyahu. since the beginning of the war on gaza last year, there have been frequent u.s. demands that israel relaxes and allows food into gaza. i do not believe the extent of u.s. pressure has made much of a difference as far as the israeli government is concerned. it has a policy and cut off northern gaza from the remainder of the gaza sector. so i do not know if the israelis will heed the american insistence and the demands that

they allow more food into northern gaza. >> one of the things i wanted to ask is that we have been hearing the news agencies that qatar's prime minister says that there have been no conversations or engagement with any party for the last three weeks when trying to secure a cease-fire. there was a time when we were talking about one being imminent. where do you see things? a lot of things -- a lot of people are saying we will have to wait until the u.s. election. >> we would have to wait until mr. netanyahu achieves the israeli objectives. he seems to be determined to undo the consequences of pulling out from gaza in 2005. the israeli cabinet is far-right. and some of its members believe that it was a mistake for israel to pullout from gaza. and as far as lebanon is concerned, some israelis in the cabinet believe that pulling out from lebanon was a mistake.

it seems like israel is determined to return to the pre-2011 in lebanon and pre-2005 in gaza. he will keep it going until the u.s. elections and before he asmes office. >> can i ask you about the situation you are in lebanon. that is a new conflict that has opened up in the last few weeks. that shows no signs of de-escalation. >> absolutely not. i do not believe that the war in lebanon has peaked yet. israel wants to publish hezbollah to the north of the river 35 kilometers from the border with israel. and then israel will negotiate a new deal with the lebanese government on the long -- along a new basis. israel believes that the

security council resolution 17 is no longer relevant, therefore they must have a new arrangement which explains why israel ses to be opposed to the continued presence of the u.n. in southern lebanon. >> thank you very much, a professor at -- of political science at the american university of beirut. we appreciate your comments. around the world and across the u.k., this is bbc news. ♪ ♪

♪ >> welcome back to "the context." it is time for the security brief with christian fraser who is joined by our military expert, mikey k. christian: hello and welcome to the weekly edition of the security brief and a lot has

happened since we lasted this, some of which we anticipated in the earlier editions. the deterioration in northern gaza and the worsening situation in the refugee camp. the time that has passed between the ballistic missile attack and the subsequent israeli response. we told you two weeks ago it might be delayed until the missile defense applies had been -- supplies had been replenished. we saw an american high-altitude antimissile system. as below -- hezbollah's surprise attack with a drone. four soldiers killed and dozens injured with a drone that somehow penetrated the israeli defense systems. one of the biggest attacks on an idf position. joining us is mikey k and he flew helicopters and strategic

military planner and we do this as he would deliver it within the armed forces. the to see you. obviously we have talked on the program about how the israelis dismantled has blob leadership -- has blob -- h has blob leadership. mikey: they are firing rockets and what a drone attack has ghlighted significantly is the major threat that the idf now faces given the asymmetric warfare that western forces have found difficult to counter. if we just take a look at the attack, there are a couple of significant support -- points, the first one being that it was roughly 40 miles inside of israeli territory. that makes it significant when it comes to israel defending

against attacks on some of its elite units. this was a goln brigade, a special forces unit. so that is significant. christian: uav's as you called them, unmanned aerial vehicles are an ever evolving dynamic of the battlefield. do we know wt type of drones that they have, and what this one was and what capability the group has? mikey: we will come to the bretz of the technology -- beadth of the technology later on. they are identifying this as the mursad 1, an iranian developed drone that is small and lightweight in comparison to the other drones and a range of 120

kilometers. a payload of explosives and you can see see the destruction that the drone can create. the idf says that it launched two projectiles before going into the target and they are calling it a scide drone which does not make sense because no one is flying inside it. it is more of a kamikaze style attack with a top speed of 370 kilometers. it can also phot -- fly low in slow which makes it harder to counter. the last bit of important information is it has a low radar cross-section, which is the thing that any targeting or search radar wants to try to identify. now, what this tells us, which i think is very interesting is that yes the leadership has be taken out. but, the idf still has the ability to launch rockets and

attacks like you have seen with this drone. they still have intelligence gathering capability. and the command-and-control structure seems to be in place. critically, when it comes to how the drone got through the iron don't and related defense system is interesting because hezbollah and the idf are saying that they are using a tactic where they overwhelm the system with rockets and then place these drones underneath it. christian: when they talked about altitude it was not the altitude itself but coming in at a dierent alf -- altitude than a volley of missiles with it. mikey: with a lower radar cross-section and speed whichs what the targeting systems look for. they look for speed and direction of the target. and the iron dome will only take out a missile if it knows that it is projecting onto a specific target that could be lethal. christian: when you look at this, what are you seeing in the terms of the development of this

drone technology. and in particular in the two major wars in the middle east and ukraine. mikey: two of the buzzwords, trounc agent -- drones is a generic turn. remotely piloted system there are predator drone's that are loaned by u.s. forces. in the states and there are unmanned aerial vehicles which could have a controller, but have that ability to interruptot the radiofrequency signal between the control on a drone and the drone itself. christian: so, can you give us examples? can you talk us through some of the things we are seeing from the theaters in both wars? mikey: there are four categories that are important. this idea of using an autonomous weapon goes back a long way.

if you go to world war ii for example, this is the nazi v1 rocket nicknamed the doodlebug, which was used to great effect. there is no gps inside of it. but they would calculate how much fuel would be needed to go in. when the fuel ran out somewhere over london it would just drop out of the sky and indiscriminately hit. christian: you hear it buzzing and then it would stop. mikey: frightening if you are underneath it. the only way to counter this and we will talk about the conventional uses of counter drone technology in the future. next slide. what the british royal air force were doing, that is a spitfire on the right and they the one rocket. the only way that they could actually counter that was by flying alongside of it and actually tipping the wing to put

it off track and into the countryside. and even today, there is this lack of counter drone technology. christian: the houthis are using it to good effect. mikey: they are. and it is a good time to look at the spectrum of capability. this is the black hornets. you can just see how small that drone is in the hands of that operator. it is 16 centimeters long and it would have the ability to put a day camera and night thermal camera. this will come into its own when you look at urban operations and the soldiers operating in an urban environment. they want to clear a block of houses or apartments. you can put this thing inside any room in the apartment door the building and it will clear any imminent threat. and then we go to the next sore

-- the next category, category two which is viewers might recognize that. that is a chinese made vgi drone. this is available all over the world to commercial filmmakers and surveying capability or people using it for their own personal use. this is taken from ukraine and they have rep anais -- weaponized this and put a bomb on it which has devastating effect and we have video footage later on of that. category three, let's go back to the mursad 1 slide. and now you have a fixed wing effect. so again, incredibly capable and travels at 370 kilometers an hour and can go up to 3000 meters and you can put a 40 kilogram payload. this gives it range so you are bringing range into it. when you look at the strike, 40 miles south of the border, that

is almost double the capability of what this drone can do. very low-tech and can move slow which makes it harder to target and detect. finally, the upscale end if you would like, this is the triton, a replacement for the global hawk system. what is significant is that it has an altitude of 50,000 feet, way higher than any civilian airline flyer. 30 hours endurance. it does isr so intelligence, surveillance and recon in a bit -- reconnaissancand target tracking which is currently in use with the u.s. military for anti-millet -- anti-maritime operations. the bredth from the black hornets all the way to commercially made and up to this type of capability, this has come about in the last 10 years. and it is phenomenal. christian: you said you had some

video, can we see it? mikey: let us take a look at this video first. slide. this is a warship targeting a houthi drone. they are actually using drones to significant effect targeting shipping, commercial shipping and destroyers and naval weapons. you can see through the video that again, this western lag and the ability to take out drones is really hurting the west at the moment. christian: this is the remote application you are talking about. someone is flying it. mikey: someone could be flying or gps guided. if it is gps guided you do not have the radiofrequency signal that you could interrupt. you cannot with ease. plus they are launching many which is called swarming. if you have a couple of rockets available then that is great. but if you have 20 drones you

only take out five and it only takes one to get through. that is providing a bit of a nightmare. christian: there was a reuters report that we saw the last week. russia is sourcing a lot of these technologies from the chinese. how much of a focus is this for moscow and what does that mean for the rest of the defense industry? mikey: some statistics coming t of ukraine at the moment. ukraine has lost 10,000 drones alone in the month of september. again, information from ukraine, the russians launched 1300 inside of ukrainian territory. the reliance on drone technology whether it is for intelligence, surveillance, or gathering or used as a kamikaze style targeting capability, the russians have realized that actually, they can deter and provide force projection and significant effect inside ukraine.

and so now ty are outsourcing and it is from the european intelligence agency that the source came from. and basically they are outsourcing a weapons program for drones inside of china. so the chinese are all in this and they have a lot of experience because of the dgi drone. christian: the big powers who have invested so much money in the systems are slightly aghast about how fast it is advancing. just coming back to the attack in israel. how you defend against these drones, particularly if they are coming in a swarm? mikey: great difficulty. there has been a huge lag in counter drone capability that the west is starting to keep up with. it is a tit-for-tat gang. there are conventional aspects being used. for example the u.k. launched a mission against houti targets using typhoons, and a very good

source informed me that two azram missile, advanced short range air to air missile which has an ir seeker head with a good range. two of them were launched by typhoons to take out houthi drones. if you have 20 drones then this will be a difficult thing to counter. they can carry about four and those missiles are more than $200,000 a pop. the next layer of defense could be used the cram, and if we could go to a bit of footage, please. christian: ok. mikey: that is it in use. and they put it on strategic locations like baghdad international airport. it was used against an attack in iraq on the u.s. embassy. it works on a hose pipe system. i will -- it will just put loads and loads of bullets in the air,

all radar tracked and hoped that it will take out the artillery or the rocket or the mortar fired. it is a supremely advanced system but with the generic use of drones, you cannot put these systems everywhere. you are tied to extreme -- strategic locations and drones can get into cafes and apartment blocks which will not be significant. back to your point on the compact laser weapon system. this is where the future include -- is going in terms of counter drone. this has been made by boeing and it is a five kilowatt laser. it is now up to 600 kilograms and now you are getting into the mursad 1 range. one of the things it will look at is the radiofrequency so if the uav is being controlled that has to have a radiofrequency to control it and it will disrupt that. if it is autonomous, then you will start to look at what is called a atp radar which is

acquire, track, and point. that will be used to slew a laser beam and what this capability can do as it can target many drones. this swarming capability where all you need is one, this is where it really comes into its own. what is interesting is that it has a range of 650 feet to miles because the iron rain -- the iron dome has a range of 2.5 miles. the mursad 1 got thrgh and attacked its target. so with a little bit of anticipation of what we might see, it would not surprise me if this capability, which has only been deployed by the united states marine corps who proved it in trials, it would not surprise me if we see this compact laser weapon system with the idf in the coming weeks and months. i think that we should. i am not sure what we will get what we want. christian: a step forward from

tipping the wing of the v1. that was an education. and i think it will give people context for what they are looking at when they hear about the attacks, particular the one that we saw last week. thank you. a reminder that all of our editions of the security briefer on youtube and you can watch them back. there is a lot of stuff. we will do this the same time next week. thank you for watching. ♪ 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.

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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ announcer: funding for presentation of this program is provided by... woman: a law partner rediscovers her grandmother's artistry and creates a trust to keep the craft alive. a raymond james financial advisor gets to know you, your passions and the way you enrich your community.