to to help each other in this axis of resistance, never to abandon hope, never to abandon, abandon, relying on allah please be his name, and to forget all about our poor, our strengthes, but keep the main belief in allah's assistance to us and this is the recipe for victory, and if i was to test your memory, i'm going to pinpoint uh to time, i'm not too sure if you were in lebanon or not, perhaps you can tell us, but when the 206 war was happening, that happened over roughly a timeline of about 30 days, and i think the number of uh people who were murdered were roughly around a thousand give or take. what are your memories of that time? israel waged war in lebanon 2006, it was a 33-day war and um, it was like any other summer, i was visiting my family there with my parents and my sister. and um, like i said before here on

press tv, the israeli regime was bombing civilian areas, there were dropping bombs on residential buildings around us, as we flood from hermal, that is in the baka to syria by car, left and right, the bombs that were being dropped, there were no hezballah fighters there, it was all civilian, cars trying to flee and reach safer place, so the same strategy, worse and even worse strategies right. now being employed by the israeli regime, we saw what happened last last night in dahya, and um, until morning my friends tell me that they could not sleep, even though they they were not in the neighborhood, they were not in that area, they were somewhere farther from that area, relatively, relatively being the keyword, safer than that area, and they told me that they could not sleep because the bombs, the sound of the bombs would not stop reaching their ears, so this whole claim that the israeli regime is making that they are after hizballah. couldn't be farther from the

truth, they are deliberately targeting civilians, which civilians? civilians who are supporting the resistance, and they say this openly with their dahi doctrine. what does that doctrine state? it states that the israeli regime is after killing, indiscriminately, bombing and killing civilians who supports hazbullah, civilians civilians who supports any faction as matter of fact that is anti the israel regime anti-occupation, anti-colonization, so there you have it, that was my memory from 2006, the memory is being relived right now and in far worse ways than then, and i think the israeli regime will not stop continuing its um genocide in lebanon, and if the world of really wants to see an end to this chaos, the united states will have to stop funding the israeli regime, it will have to stop uh arming the israeli regime with more...

weapons and military capabilities, say goodbye to uh mohammed uh from beirot, thank you mohammed obaid, political commentator for your thoughts on this uh sad day, looking forward to the future, however and writer and political analyst from beirout, ellie risk joins us now, ellie risk, welcome uh so here we are uh sad day indeed for the loss of such a big tall figure uh that really made an impact um just because of who he was, not because he was a leader of the resistance, but his personality was very strong. um, nevertheless, we have to look uh as to where uh, lebanon is going to be heading to next in the context of what we're looking at in the region with israel still continuing with its onslot. what are we looking at now? um, because i'm sure israel is not going to wait for the morning to take place and then uh make decisions. indeed, you raised very good point, and i think that the israel going to

try and escalate, basically they're going to try as much as possible not to give hazballah any breathing room, and that's something which the israel's military, israeli military officials have declared openly. herzzi who was one of the more hawkish voices that were supportive of escalation on the lebanese front, he basically said something to the effect that we're not going to give hazballah time to regroup, we're not going to give them time to breathe, and so i do expect... you're going to see more and more escalation, because according to the israeli mindset, as it appears, this is the golden opportunity to seize the moment, they see that there's a kind of vacuum in leadership according to the israeli perspective, they see that hey, they have inflicted heavy blows on hizballah, so they're going to seek to try and take advantage of this as much as possible, but i think that hazballah also is aware and recognizes that fact, we have to wait and see how the responses will... i think it's

important to bear in mind that now is in the midst of kind of transition, so if you don't see a large strong military retaliation today, that doesn't necessarily mean or... reflect that hazballah is defeated or it's in a state of weakness etc. i think you have to wait maybe few more days to see how how how is going to deal with the situation and i think an important um issue we must keep our eye on is how hezballah is going to collaborate a possible response or strategy with its own network of regional allies and i think the regional allies now are going to maybe up the ant in their involvement in support of we all know that enjoyed immense popularity not just in lebanon but within the wider axes of resistance if you would like uh particularly in yemen, in iraq, so let's wait and see even sistani issued, he's issued two

fatwas regarding lebanon, he issued the fatwa today, hailing sayid hassan, so we have to wait and see how that network of alliances is going to behave, are we going to witness for example american? basis this time coming under fire out of the belief that america at least may be directly or indirectly enabled or facilitated this latest israeli escalation. i think these are all developments we have to, which we have to keep a watch on. well, since you talked about american bases, i find it pretty odd in the midst of this, there was an announcement made in the past 24-48 hours about how um the iraq and the us have reached agreements when it comes to their departure, the us. uh forces departure from iraq also when it comes to syria, i believe, there has been an agreements made or announcement made in that regard, if i'm correct in the syria one, the iraq one i'm pretty sure of, isn't that odd timing in the midst of all this, this was made prior of course, i must add to the assassination announcement, it does raise

suspicions, yes, was this planned for example with the us, the us new beforehand is withdrawing a troops, i believe that the syrian decision has been taken, by the way, i am aware of the iraqi one, so was this joint planning between the israelis and the americans, they want to move their troops out of harm's way, but we have to remember that the troops are still there as we speak, if that retaliation takes place, it will probably take place before those arrangements, those logistics are in place for that american t troop withdrawal, so it might be the fact that the americans are basically trying to, it might be related. to biden, joe biden's legacy, i think that joe biden maybe wanted to leave a good legacy uh, which would be translated by withdrawing troops from the middle east, since that issue is very controversial issue uh, it's not very popular in the u.s. to continue to have

american true presence in this region, so it might not necessarily be linked to some kind of joint american israeli collab collaboration, it could be, i'm not denying it, but it's also possible that it's related to... to other factors, um, if that is the case, if it's the case that it's you know related to america trying to withdraw its presence or decreases presence in the region, this just goes to show you how the israelis are behaving in a careless way, which basically even ignores american red lines, and i think that if that if that is the case, i think the biden administration very clearly brought the situation on itself, it was very weak, often it was encouraging, even the israel but even when it did appear to verbally speak out, it was very weak and very timid, and i think this made the benjamin netanyahu dare to go ahead with this dramatic escalation which culminated in the assassination of sad hassan, meaning that um,

possibly natanyahu saw that this is the good time, biden's been very weak, he's continued to turn the blind eye to take it very easy with israel, and so netanyahu might have perceived that this is the golden opportunity. now if ever there was a time to carry out these operations, now is the time, but that could very well, this development could very well ignite the regional war, which the americans at least openly have been saying they want to avoid. well, if there's a time for retaliation that needs to make an impact, not that every one of the retaliations coming from hisbollah was not meant to make an impact is now, what form do you think that would take or should take in order to come out? strong after such horrible event, the assassination of say hasan nasaralah. look, i, i find it hard to envision hazballah carrying out attack which would lead to a large number of civilians, israeli setlers being killed. i find that to

be rather unlikely scenario, that just doesn't uh fit in, it's not consistent with hazballah's usual modest operandi. even when there were uh spies, lebanese spies who used to work. israel for example after 2000 or before 2000, hazballah would even when those spies would be we would be with their families, they wouldn't target them out of care not to do harm to their family. members so they would wait for the spy to be alone, so it's very much inconsistent with hazballah's ethics, if you would like. i think it's also, it would be rather unstrategic to do that, because that risks getting the us maybe further, getting the us to further support israel, and it might give israel more legitimacy. israel now is viewed as being a very illegitimate actor, now that isn't having a big impact on israel's behavior, it's not curbing israel's behavior of course, but should has launch attack, such attack which would lead to a the fall or the death of a large number of non-military

people, i think that might just serve the israeli agenda of mobilizing more and more to its side, getting even more american support, possibly even more western support, and i think that hazbullah has proven over the years that it's more strategic, it's a more strategic thinker then to fall into such trap, so with that in mind, i think you're going to see hazballah strike some... most strategic military installations, possibly some senior israely military leaders or military commanders, i think that is a strong possibility, but without going to that step, that rather dramatic and maybe unstrategic step of killing large numbers of civil of non non-military people. well, if the uh, and i hope this doesn't happen, but if the death toll rises in lebanon and the strikes continue from the israeli regime, um then shouldn't there be some kind of retaliation

uh that uh would stop that or mean first of all do you see that being what is this really game plan? guess i should ask you that question, what do they want from lebanon at this point? uh, i'm not sure there is an isready game plan, i think that um netanyahu is basically trying to inflict as much damages on hizballah as he can, but this is very much related to netanyahu's own domestic standing. i think netanyahu wants to go down in history and in history as the person, as the israeli leader who was able to inflict these immense blows, these very severe blows against hazballah, but his declared goal, israel's declared goal behind this latest round of escalation is safe return of the settlers, the settlers to the north, now how does this escalation, the targeting of dah, southern, the assassination?

without being dealt the severe blows and without suffering casualties, it might have suffered if israel hadn't launched these operations, the detonation of the pages and the assassination of the tr of the top bras of hazbullah, so that me that might be israel's end game to take out the top brass and that would make it easier possibly according to israel of course to go ahead with a ground invasion or the israelis might view that this current pressure which is being applied on allah is sufficient enough even without a ground invasion to force hazballah to back down and to you know

withdraw or to cease its firepower, that might be the israeli calculations, if that latter one is the option, i think the israelis are being rather unrealistic, and i think you did see clear responses come from hazballah today with the launching of missiles that continued as we've seen over over the past few days and it does show that the command and control of hazballah does remain. somewhat intact despite these severe blows which have been delivered. okay, marins us a correspond over from, i believe that's where she is at. my welcome, i want to thank you for the delivery that you made, the presentation was very hardfelt and it was genuinely watched and was very touching and i want to thank you for that, because you have been with us through the past years and decades, must say, over decade at this point uh with sayid hassan speeches and all the different ways that sayid hasan appeared on our screens and all the different reports that he gave to us, nonetheless, here we are, and i hope he, and i'm sure he is in a better

place. i'd like to find out from you what you're looking at regionally here, particular israel, what it wants to do when it comes to lebanon, which was my question to ali risk, and uh, what signs do you see as to indicate where the israel regime is headed to, and of course how hezbol is uh regrouping in order to uh stand up against the israel regime. well cavi, thank you for your condolences and uh we know from the israelis uh that they have already the uh the chief of staff has already begun to give permission to new round. of strikes, the israeli strikes on south lebanon and the bacca did not stop, we also had two different strikes in the southern suburbs of beirot, and this is of course you can probably see the image of the southern suburbs of beirot behind me where there is still smoke uh and that smoke which we are seeing is not necessarily from the latest strike, it was also uh the result of

yesterday's very uh barbaric strikes all across the southern suburbs of beirot uh where the israeli seem to be using tons of explosives to the extent that we are seeing the the smoke rising from the southern suburbs of all last night, the early hours of the morning, today as well, it continues to, we also saw that there were several buildings uh that were not demolished completely as a result of the first aggressions yesterday and so some of them collapsed today uh as a result of those strikes uh leading to more damages uh the the count of marters is is really extremely difficult to be able to gather right now uh the israelis of course continued with this with their campaign uh with their aggression and i prefer to call it from now on the barbaric bloody um murder of innocent children and and women civilians uh they continue and definitely with full throughtle as we heard from the chief of

staff and the israeli officials that they're going ahead uh with that campaign uh seemingly i think in in notion that the resistance now is in its weakest point after having lost uh the secretary general of hazbullah hasan nasallah as a primary commander and for the israelis they believe and the us as well has said this through its experts that he is the backbone not only of hazballah's resistance i'm still using is of course he was the backbone will continue to be uh with his thoughts and with his faith that he has of course. um deeply planted in the hearts of many uh he will uh he was the backbone considering uh that of the resistance in lebanon and all the resistance fronts and he they believed also that he was the main coordinator if we may say and he was the main common denominator uh with all the resistance factions um whether in palestine

in iraq in yemen also with the the links that he had with the islamic republic of iran and so they believe believe that this would probably be heavy blow for the resistance, of course it is only natural to say that such body, especially after the various blows in the past, we had the the pagers devices, the terror attack, then the the the assassination the commanders and now uh this news uh the israelies will probably think that this would probably uh weaken the resistance uh we are of course we need to wait a bit and "we believe that the resistance will stand its feet and we will probably be witnessing new phase in the resistance operations, and we might also see new factors that are going to be played out in the issues that hazbullah had been keeping, perhaps for the right time. uh, and as we mentioned know that the latest news, i think you probably have mentioned it,

the sirens are sounding all across the laviv and its suburbs, and the're the israeli military..." spokesperson is saying that there was rocket, there were rockets being fired from yemen towards tel aviv, and so this is probably the beginning of new round of operations from the yemeni armed forces and support of the palestinian resistance and their people and the support of the lebanese people and their resistance as well, and we know also know that the sirens were sounding all across the gilily region and all the areas, and it was not clear whether the resistance factions and mentioned that the control and command still remains in place, it is still intact, especially with the fact that we noticed how uh, even after the assassination, the operations continued unabated, we had several attacks towards several uh settlements all across occupied palestine, even reaching the settlements in

the occupied west bank and occupied al quds, and so that is... is message perhaps uh and a clear sign that the resistance is still standing its feet despite the israeli crimes, if you want to mention just some of the crimes, we know that the israelis targeted vehicle uh in this in south lebanon um of course it's not clear whether the family survived that that attack or not, we also have another motorbike that was targeted in the area of biqa and the extent of the destruction that we see in the biqa area. as well as in south lebanon, it's it's unprecedented actually, and now we are of course the the so-called signs of warning that uh the israelis are giving just perhaps five minutes before the strike uh we're also seeing that the israelies are sending messages of uh threats also that they will be targeting areas which have been considered

safe and where the displaced people are taking refuge uh and although of course it's when we come talk about the general emotion and the atmosphere in lebanon uh we saw maybe spontaneous uh marches all across uh south beirot of people morning hazballah secretary general sad hasan nasarlah shouting in the streets crying even uh men crying on the streets but this does not mean that there is weakness it will only take matter of time for the people to put aside their broken hearts to maybe even put aside the issue of warning for now until we go ahead with this confrontation with the israeli seem to be going through to the very end and that gives of course the resistance leverage uh to go on with its uh attacks and to strike hard perhaps in various areas which have not been targeted before, i'm checking to see if there's more, we know that there were sounds

of explosions heard in tel aviv uh, it's not clear whether the israel's the the um israels were able to intercept uh those rockets because it seems that there are more than one rocket and the it is was clear that with the previous attacks from uh yemen, the use of ballistic missiles towards the center of the israeli regime, um, even if they were intercepted, they were more of a warning than they were direct retaliation from yemen and the ballistic missile that was targeted by hizbullah, that also seemed to be a warning that now this is with one rocket, we were able to take down over million israeli settlers to the shelters and create that disruption of the israeli so-called home front is what they call the home front, they've trained. their people, they've trained the settlers very well how to deal uh with issues of war since they were built on war and destruction and terrorism uh and killing and bloodshed uh and so we can see

that if one rocket was able to do that what would happen if the yemeny armed forces as well as hazbolah decide to launch tens of those same rockets can their error system or all these systems can they really intercept all those rockets and nothing would reach uh the center, this is something even the israelis do not have answer to, and we can probably all, we all probably need to wait and see what type of capabilities, what type of surprises um that were the result of long years of training and preparation and and planning and thinking and faith and sacrifices uh that hazballah secretary general say hasan nasarah along with a whole generation perhaps of commanders along with him uh then later on of course i said mohsin shukr and all those names they were one

generation of commanders that really created the foundations for what could be uh new phase in a resistance that would seemingly growing into a more regional force and a regional. alliance and not only a limited popular resistance, and i think that it was hazbullah's secretary general sacrifice that would create that that link that would really bless and perhaps strengthen that new unity that they have created and made with the uh with the palestinian resistance, we know now that it will be definitely indivisible, the last words of secretary, a general said hasanlah in the last speech actually was that there will be, there's nothing that will stop hazballah from continuing with its support operations in in support of of palestine and

the people of palestine and the resistance of palestine, it is only when the genocidal stops that the resistance in lebanon will perhaps stop its operations, i think that is still very much um evident today, and this will also be drawing the path. the resistance in the near future. i'd like to get your reaction about what a senior israely officials said on the sidelines of the un general assembly uh when uh the assassination took place where he claimed that uh by assassinating sayid hassan astrola uh basically this by him being eliminated that they will not go through with the ground operation and uh further ad withbullah secretary. general now to not be in the picture that the israel regime does not need to or that hisbollah will not be able to regroup itself uh adding that there were some other senior officials to have been taken out

also. um, first of all, what do you think about what he has said, and uh, is his positioning correct when he when it seems like he places so much weight on one person, as big and as grand as he was, as effective as he was, as a leader uh, for an organization that uh has tens of thousands in its membership. i think that these statements reflect a clear lack of strategic vision, a clear lack of understanding, if that is what the... "if such israeli officials speak in this way, i don't think this is very good news for israel, that means that you have some people, some israeli officials who are really bad strategic thinkers, if they believe that the taking out or the assassination of a leader is going to weaken an organization so much as to make it cease to exist or to cease to be effective, however, however, if that is how israel is going to proceed, if it does stop here taking

out. these leaders and doesn't go ahead with a ground operation, that would basically mean that uh what's happened is all for show, meaning that the israelies tried to make themselves look good, they scored some propaganda points, some quite big significant propaganda points, but nevertheless they remain tactical, tactical, tactical achievements against hazballah, so uh such statements, i think reflect a tactical approach which lacks a broader strategic framework, so that's indeed, as i said, if that indeed is the real israeli strategy, which was expressed by the israeli official, i think there is some severe strategic shortsitedness and the lack of understanding of what hazballah really is, and i want to ask you the same question, mariam because the headline reads official with strike nastrola, israel hopes to avoid ground up in lebanon, citing a senior israeli official that said

this assassination was at breaking, and my question to you mariam, aside from your reaction is why this particular official is, first of all, if you think it's truly reflective of the israeli position, and how they could think that taking one figure, in this case the highest figure out from hezbollah would mean that it would constitute a breakup of hezbollah, well, i think there are a lot of contradictions even within the israeli officials, i think we heard also there were other sources from another israeli officials saying that that now is time uh to continue with a ground offensive uh and that uh the israeli uh regime's uh murder prime minister has will be meeting with his cabinet soon maybe underground somewhere uh saying that