lebanon and hamas is sorry let letting it be known that there's not going to be pushover so that's great and of course the occupation forgets that unlike palestinians you know there's no embargo on hezbolah is more than capable of topping up its arsenal of weapons without the sort of restrictions that are imposed on on palestinians especially those were in gaza, so this has to be something of great concern to them, because the they're really potentially facing attack on many fronts, including from yemen, from within by palestine, by by lebanon, iran potentially, and of course to the extent syria can by by syria, well that's an interesting point you mentioned right? there so uh let's bring back

laid up uh if you just heard mr. grossman just mentioning very interesting point that israel seems to forget that lebanon unlike gaza is not under an arms embargo and it's quite capable of uh improving its arsenal uh and becoming even stronger than what it is now so uh do you believe that the israelies have not taken that into account by starting this kind of escalation which is clearly going to continue by hesbollah as uh they have vowed to retaliate for the assassination of their leaders later oh the question is for of of me i thought it was for mson um the thing is it's not even if there was an arms against it's not uh it's not hard to actually smuggle weapons to lebanon or any other country in the region if it's not under siege. gaza has

been under siege for the past 16 to 17 years, if you remember since 2006 until today, so it's by land, air and by sea. lebanon doesn't have that, and that's the difference. yes, some people say that lebanon is not is not under arms arms embargo, but there has been an international community that came against lebanon, ban it from acquiring strategic weapons especially for the lebanese army because don't want a country with strategic weapons that is directly at the borders with occupied palestine where the israel. the occupation is, they don't want anybody to be able to fight the israelis, so the lebanese army was banned from acquiring strategic weapons. hizball did not stick to that, they had their own uh basically strategic weapons smuggled into lebanon at one point in time, through syria, through through through the sea, we know, we don't know the roots, but a they know it better than us, at the same time they started manufacturing their own weapons, if you remember the drones, the attack drones and the spy drones that they had showed us over the past five months, all these drones have been manufactured in lebanon. had

mentioned that in his speeches that if you destroy a drone we can actually manufacture up to 2000 in the same month or the same day, i can't remember the time limit, but they can manufacture them on mass, when it comes to the smaller missiles, they're also manufacturing them in lebanon, so we are beyond stocking up an arm arms pile that we get from abroad, we're also manufacturing it over here, and this is what the israelis fear, not only the ballistic missiles but the ability to be able to... models without any uh faltering on their part and this is what we've seen yesterday 400 miss came out from lebanon towards the israeli entity, the israeli occupation and before that 220 missiles, so every day we're shooting hundreds of missiles towards the israeli entity and they know that we mean business. there was a study done one of the israeli universities that one of the general sold us during one of our spaces and he said that hezballah has the capacity to launch thousands of messals per day for a whole month. so that's massive, if imagine if all

these missiles were launched at the same time, now with hundreds of missiles, everybody is in the shelters, thousands of missiles, they're going to cover the whole sky, and this is what hezballah meant when they said, we will make it rain on you, one of the leader of hisballah parliamentary block said, we will make the rockets rain on you if you want to expand this, so they're ready for anything, they've been ready since 2006, once we went into that fight against the israelies when they did the aggression on lebanon 2006 knew that the next world that's going to come, it's going to be massive, so they've been preparing for the past um basically 18 years or so, stocking up on an arsenal, learning how to build an arsenal and basically getting ready for this fight, and the fight has happened now and they're ready for it, well okay, let's bring back mr. barry grossman uh, what do you think would be the next step for the leban? these people

considering this kind of escalation that has happened, how would they reconsider their policies, particularly when it comes to their relationships with those countries you? mentioned have been meddling in lebanese affairs, france, the uk, the us, well, i personally always try to avoid meddling or giving opinions about the internal domestic affairs of other countries, because it's the very thing that i complain about when atlantic world countries do it to to countries that i identify with, but clearly um, that's a matter that's going to be... determined internally and no doubt with a great deal of input from hezbollah, and i think ultimately, we're going to see some changes, but as for what's playing out, i think israel has obseenly miscalculated, i, i personally think they are or were relying on

being able to instigate some kind of action against hezballah from within lebanon through their various. connections with other political factions and it sounds like, it seems like that's just not going to happen, certainly not in the near future, i doubt that it can happen at all, which means they've sort of unleashed the tiger and now they have to deal with the consequences of it's not a force that can be shut down that easily, and certainly to correct myself against, so i'm at one with your with your other speaker, i mean when i spoke about not not being under an embark means an effective embargo or not under siege, bearing in mind that there are all manner of ways of bringing any needed materials or weapons into lebanon, which of course is already manufacturing a great deal of military technology

applications as needed, whether it's drones or rockets or or anything else, but they don't suffer from the same handicap that's been... imposed on palestinians and especially palestinians in in gaza, that's something which has to weigh very heavily in the corridors of power in israel, especially once they understand of course that as your other guess pointed out, this your volume of missiles at lebanon has alone could see them marine missiles on all of the occupied territories for. for for a period of weeks and that's before we get into what could be done from iran and other places, so the the really seem to be gambling their entire future on this current quite insane tactic to advance their borders and essentially

annihilate palestinians all together. you're absolutely right, mr. grossman, yes, thanks for that clarification, we're trying to uh compare the situation in lebanon. as far as israel is concerned with what is happening in gaza, and basically that's uh what we had in mind, so in your opinion, uh, lila, considering the clarification that has been made, and of course we do know that lebanon itself is quite capable of uh providing the military and defense equipment that it needs, but more importantly as the intelligence gathering, which is now very important. in these clashes and hazbullah has demonstrated that is quite capable in that front as well, well if you know if you have watched what was happening over the past 11 months has been

naming places in the israeli entity, they've had their spy drones, the hoodood or the hopo drown basically flying over all these israeli occupation territory. entities basis and they were actually putting the intel on each base and each place that you can't get from a drone alone, you have to have intel on the ground which shows that hizballah has managed to get that information on the ground from somewhere and that's their intel on the ground that's their strength, the israelis on the other hand they're banking on 57 states to give them until on lebanon, you have to understand lebanon is an open territory for everybody, you have spice from all agencies across the world operating from lebanon, and then you have the american against the british and the french giving intel also to the israelis, you have their spidrones flying over our territories, our space and then giving intel to the israelies as well, not only from the ground but also from the sky. the day of the pagers attacks we saw c130h planes both american and british flying across the coastline from lebanon and they

left shortly before the explosion started happening. these are electronic warfare planes that do do jamming and create frequency among other things. they have the spy satellites that are stationed over. this region, so all this technology provided by all the nato powers at one point is aiding the israelis with their intel, so yes, they do have basically what we call technological and until advance over... lebanon, but imagine one resistance group in lebanon being able to gather all this intel on all the israeli military basis inside the occupied territories and target them accurately with new weapons all the time, new missiles they're introducing to the battlefield, that shows me that if hezballah had the same kind of support from the international community, the israelis would have been wiped out long time ago. the thing is the israelis are banking on everybody to support it, whereas the lebanese are fighting alone just like the palestians are fighting. alone just like the yemenies and the irakies and the syrians are fighting alone, they are coming together as resistance groups, not as countries, and each

one within their own limited capabilities are trying to do something and they are doing something on the ground, and i command them on that. so mr. crossman, um, hazballah uh members time and again, particularly after these assassination attacks, they have come out saying that killing uh lebanese leaders will only make it strong. unlike what uh israel tries to portray and its media and of course it also has mainstream media backing it with that uh narrative and i believe that uh by watching what is happening right now, the news that we're receiving a barrage of rockets firing from lebanon towards israeli settlements in northern occupied territories, sirens sounding in haifa following rocket attacks launched from southern lebanon, the cutter one ballistic missile at headquarters in the suburbs of tel aviv, all of these show

that clearly that is not true, and hazbullah has become stronger if not weaker, phenomenon play out in iran for that matter, i mean they suffer from this syndrome in in in a lot of atlantic world countries, especially the united states, i call it the superhero syndrome that has people so... focused on themselves if they think that you know they were born with some special capability or power and they're going to single-handedly change or save the world and or if there's others competing with the with a darker agenda all it takes is to knock that person off but of course history is shown that assassinations rarely achieve anything positive at all and you know hezballah as is the case in iran is very deep talent pool of people who have been living through these

conflicts their entire lives participating in whatever way they can to contribute to achieving their national aims based on of course their their own religious convictions and the notion that if you kill one that the whole how the whole thing will come down like house of cards it's really quite absurd what it does uh uh as with the the killing of any marters is inspires others who are equally capable to take their place, and for some reason countries like the united states and apparently israel are incapable of comprehending that, and let's also be clear that heizbullah has very sophisticated leadership structure, you know, it's like if we use metaphor like airplanes. the airplanes, they build in systems so that if one component fails is another one already

installed to take its place, and we can only assume that hisballah has done everything in its in its power to ensure that whatever happens to any person it's factored into the ongoing processes needed to kick in in order to keep fighting for. for its legitimate objectives and the idea that assassinating individuals is going to make any difference is really quite absurd, in fact it has the opposite of that, it makes them stronger, it inspires others to join the fold, and it gives them also legitimacy in the eyes of people who otherwise might deny that they're legitimate at all, and that's one thing we've seen globally since this this genocidal war started on on on gaza, most recently. in october 2007 is that people around the world,

including jewish populations in america and everywhere else, normally would identify with the zionist cause have been totally disillusioned and are protesting in support of justice for palestinians and while i might not produce any immediate change in the long term that... out very bleak future for that particular ideology or anybody who would continue to promote it. okay, so i believe that. toom will be leaving us soon if i could ask one last question. lila, do we still have you for one last question? sure, sure. we have received word that the israeli prime minister netanyahu has postponed his trip to new york for the un general assembly address. now we do know that uh this uh annual address is something that uh netanyahu puts high on

his agenda. he always has a special um let's say agenda for showcasing his ideas, always bringing in um extra um things to show to the people who are listening to him, the fact that he has decided not to attend the un general assembly address and postpone his trip, we'll see if he will be attending in uh other days or not, but what does that mean? well uh, when it comes to leader... ship, if you are in times of crisis, you shouldn't be leaving your country and go out to address the world when you have to be next to your people, the attack that happened today in tel aviv, i mean like it hit tel aviv suburbs, not like shortly close to tel aviv, that's a massive thing, he needs to reassure his people, right, but at the same time you have to understand there's decent against netanyahu, the people are divided, there are

what you call protest against him and it's growing, and there's an international sentiment calling him a terrorist. there is basically sopina that's going to be or that has been issued against him and his people, so after the pager's attack, the international sentiment among the populations the world who are represented at the united nations level, they're all against what the israelies did to the lebanese population, because targeting civilians on mass is banned, i mean they hit 3,300 people at the same time through civilian devices right, so if he goes to the united nations. 'everybody's going to either call him a terrorist or they walk away from his statement, so he actually hit two birds with one stone trying to show his people that he's there as a leader that he doesn't want to leave the country in times of crisis and at the same time running away from being humiliated in front of the international community because everybody's going to point fingers at him and call him a terrorist, remember he's the person who sells you words, he's really good with words, but he's not a

stupid person at the end of the day, he knows how to play things and he knows how to um take advantage of of the matter, if he goes the next day or the..." after that's different, but on the day that his uh tel aviv population were hit by a missile from hizballah, i don't think he he would, he should have left, and this is what he did. okay, thank you very much, laila hattum, journalist and commentator joining us live from beirot. now uh, back to barry, what do you think this, how should we describe what's happening right now? is this already war? should we call this a war between? israel and lebanon is this conflict, it's a bit hard to define at this point, well if it's not a war, i don't what it is, some sort of should we call it clashes, should we call it a conflict, is it an all out war, could it get any worse? well, certainly ranks being called

a conflict, but we're not talking about clashes here, okay, because clashes involve some kind of minor alter. the these exchanges are part of the long running attempt by israel to basically claw back territory from lebanon, okay, and to to basically leave a position that it cannot do anything to help the palestinians in in in occupied palestine, so there's no point in is talking about a single incident or a handful of incidents, this has been going on for years, it's been heavily ramped up in recent months since october the 7th, and we're talking about 10,000 exchanges, 82% of which were initiated by israel, so you know, it's just close to

being a full out war as it can be, i guess only thing that stops it from falling into that category is... that they're not actively committed to on either side to engaging in ground operations, unlimited ground operations on on each other's territory, so so we're not quite there yet, but it's certainly is a protracted and very serious conflict as as as any nation is enduring when it comes to having any armed exchange with israel, let's remember israel is... quite routinely attacking syria, and i certainly wouldn't call those skirmishes either, let alone what the what the what the occupation military does to? individual palestinians in the west bank or or in in in gaza, these are are not skirmishes and certainly in palestine

now what we're seeing is a full out war, a genocidal war at that that doesn't even pay lip service to the international law of armed conflict and you the various prohibited practices and weapons um "are we there yet with lebanon? well, maybe not quite, but this is not something that's going away. israel has stated that in in as of today, even they have stated their in intentions to ramp things up. so mr. grosman, the reason why i asked this question is that, as you mentioned, if we have the ground invasion, then it will reach a whole new level, and that's when we will definitely have to call it a full-blown..." between the two sides and that is when we uh can expect allies to also come in and that war to grow wider in the region, particularly it could be possible

that iran would be drawn into this conflict, what is your opinion? well, i i think the entire resistance could be drawn into it, and i'm not sure that the military strategies within the resistance would... necessarily off to engage in conventional tactics by invading on the ground, given that, they have, they really have tanks and other bits the latest ground armaments and artilleries that are needed to to fight against a country like israel on the ground instead, as nasrulah said lebanon, the resistance has a... all or any single member country can rain missiles on key areas within the occupied territories, for as long as it takes

to basically do there what israel is doing in in gaza, it's pretty straight forward, so if that's what they're shopping for in israel, and let's be clear about this, the the the political elite and... israel seem to be willing sacrifice any number of israelis to achieve their political objectives, then presumably that's what they'll get, but i don't think ultimately will will win them any sympathy, there'll be no way to characterize, response which has been warned about and held off on for many many months while the occupation runs a mock murdering people all over the place in their tens of thousand. and there'll be no room to characterize a full on military response using missiles as anything other than legitimate response. okay, so uh,

what do you think about iran uh showing support for hazballah, and of course right now the iranian president is in new york to attend the... uh general assembly, the president also did address the general assembly and offered his support and called for a halt to uh these attacks. uh, do you believe that iran can play a stronger role in bringing these clashes to an end? i think iran is doing everything that it can uh do, legitimately do uh bearing the risks and consequences that are involved in it. certainly is not shy about about the fact that it's a very good friend to hazbullah, but that does not mean as as some people

would have the world believe people like the americans that iran somehow controls, nothing could be further from the truth, um, but iran does more than his fair share more than any other nation in the region, probably in the well for certainly in the world. to support the resistance and is actively a part of the resistance, but i'm not going to second guess, i'm not a military strategist, i don't have my fingers and any buttons, and i'm not going to second guess the decisions that are made in terron about when to act and when to wait, these, you know, there's no nation more capable of of strategizing and working out an appropriate response, taking all matters into account, then then uh... then those people charged with that task in iran uh and if the if they're not doing as much as some people claim they're doing no doubt there's a very

good reason for it frankly. "i think, i mean, if if israel wants it, we can assume it's a bad thing, and there's nothing that israel would like more than to see iran weighed into this conflict militarily, so that immediately that triggers the response from the united states, france, germany, the united kingdom, to also bring in troops and make it a full-fledged regional war, with the primary target being iran, so when they're sitting there..." uh developing their strategies and their tactics in iran, believe me, as well, many of us know, they're very capable, they're very measured and they're very patient in their response, there's no point doing anything and just for the sake of being seen to be acting. okay, so uh, we also have the upcoming us elections. uh, okay, mr.

grossman, i'm sorry, we're gonna have to... to interrupt this discussion right there, i have been informed that we're receiving live images from the leader of aron's islamic revolutioned making address.

with government offices and bodies, and followed and number of them has have to do hopefully personnel at our office could also follow this up so that they could look into the issues and what can be done.