Full Comment - Here’s what it’s like living under Hezbollah’s constant attacks

00:00:00.000 The war in Israel, the one between Israel and Hamas, is something that has caught the world's

00:00:13.060 attention, but things are about to shift and shift quite dramatically. Hello, I'm Brian Lilly. Welcome

00:00:18.320 to the Full Comment podcast. There is another front that has been active since October 7th

00:00:23.820 on Israel's northern border. It's one that hasn't received as much attention, but has started to

00:00:28.540 warm up recently. And the question is, how long does Israel allow Hezbollah to be shooting rockets

00:00:35.940 and missiles, among other weapons, over that northern border before they start to retaliate

00:00:41.800 in a more fulsome way? To talk more about this and discuss where things are at and where they

00:00:47.200 might go is Zaret Sahavi. She is a retired IDF officer and the founder and president of the

00:00:54.680 Alma Centers. Sari, thanks for the time today. Thank you for having me.

00:01:00.220 You're situated in Galilee. You are near the northern border. When I visited you a few months

00:01:06.520 ago, you took myself and others up to the border. We could see into Lebanon. And at that time,

00:01:12.800 there was indiscriminate missiles, rockets, different weapons being fired across the border.

00:01:18.540 What's the situation like now on the northern border?

00:01:23.080 Today specifically was a rough day. Since yesterday morning, Israel eliminated one of the

00:01:30.960 most senior commanders of Hezbollah, which is like a commander of a division of one of the three

00:01:37.840 divisions of Hezbollah in South Lebanon, and he's the second one to be killed. And Hezbollah retaliated

00:01:43.560 with around 30 attacks in the past 48 hours. And it caused a lot of fires over here up north since

00:01:53.760 it's a hot summer day and every heat of a rocket in open areas, in an area that relatively to the

00:02:00.720 rest of Israel, and there are more trees and it's more green than elsewhere. Today, it is becoming more

00:02:07.920 black. It's lush at times throughout Galilee.

00:02:13.460 Yes. And now it's black. Now the forests are burned.

00:02:18.240 Are these fires just being started by the missiles and rockets coming across? Or is Hezbollah also

00:02:24.280 purposely starting forest fires as part of their military operation against Israel?

00:02:30.420 All of the above. It is purposely starting fires by launching rockets to these places. This is

00:02:39.780 exactly what it is doing. We had today, only this morning, a barrage of 200 rockets that were launched

00:02:48.340 from Lebanon to Israel and 20 drones to all over northern Israel in a range of all along the borderline,

00:02:56.940 which is around 100 kilometers. And the range into Israel was maximum of 30 kilometers.

00:03:06.220 In Israeli terms, that's a lot. That's a lot of people that went to shelters today.

00:03:13.020 The area right next to the border has been evacuated. But my understanding is that's only about

00:03:20.460 the first five to six kilometers. Less. Is that correct? Zero to five, yes. Less.

00:03:27.180 That's 60,000 Israelis.

00:03:30.620 60,000 people. They were evacuated just after October 7th. Have they been back to their homes at all?

00:03:38.380 Or is it nine months of living in hotels?

00:03:42.860 Most of them didn't go back to their homes. Very few came back to live. Very, very few.

00:03:53.260 Some of those who stayed are farmers that have to take care of their orchards that are now being

00:03:58.700 burned by Hezbollah. Or cows or chickens, many of them. Agriculture is one of the main providers here. 1.00

00:04:05.740 And I agreed that out of the 60,000, maybe a third or a quarter stayed in hotels.

00:04:13.500 Many others, they didn't come back. They just rented apartments elsewhere or find other residential solutions.

00:04:21.980 And they have tons of problems around that with education and providing us. Israel is compensating them, 0.99

00:04:34.460 but there is no compensation for the loss of an educational system, school, the friends, the family problems,

00:04:46.380 the feeling that you are meaningless. You don't have a job. You cannot provide for your family.

00:04:55.020 We tried to support them. Many of them left everything behind. Most of them left everything

00:04:59.100 behind. Even if they rented apartments, they had to start from scratch.

00:05:04.940 So let me ask you who these people are, because we've got the protests in our streets here. We had an

00:05:11.260 encampment just a couple of blocks from where I'm sitting right now at the University of Toronto that

00:05:16.220 was just recently dispersed. And if you listen to the protesters, they will tell you that, well,

00:05:23.660 Israel is an apartheid state. Israel grants no rights to anybody else except Jews. 0.86

00:05:32.380 And Jed, I recall standing with you and you saying, well, that's a Christian village. That's a Muslim

00:05:37.660 village. This one's mixed. That one's Jews and Christians and Muslims all together. Tell me who 1.00

00:05:42.940 lives in this area that has been evacuated for nine months now. Who has seen their life displaced?

00:05:50.220 The Galilee in general, which is not just the evacuees, is very diverse. Actually,

00:05:56.220 the Jews are the minority in the Galilee. 53% of the population of Northern Israel.

00:06:01.980 Israel. And when I'm saying Northern Israel, I mean about 30 kilometers from the border,

00:06:09.260 up to 30 kilometers from the border. It's about 53% are non-Jewish, which is composed of Muslim

00:06:16.700 Christians, Druze, which is a very small sect that departed from Islam 1,000 years ago. And they live 1.00

00:06:24.620 in this region, in Lebanon, Syria, Israel, a bit of Jordan. And Jews, four sects in general.

00:06:33.500 Among the displaced, the 60,000, we have one Muslim Bedouin town that got a lot of damages and

00:06:43.020 Hezbollah targeted many times. And many of them came back, even though they are under fire.

00:06:49.900 We have an Alawite town, which is another sect that departed from Islam centuries ago,

00:06:58.060 but it is part of the Assad family in Syria. But here, they are completely against them,

00:07:05.900 and they are citizens of Israel. And their town is also targeted all the time.

00:07:12.220 Hezbollah is a Muslim militia, a Muslim political movement. But they don't care that they are 1.00

00:07:20.220 targeting Muslims inside Israel, do they?

00:07:22.700 No, it doesn't matter. For them, it just doesn't matter. 0.68

00:07:27.100 Are they seen as traitors because they're inside Israel?

00:07:33.580 Yes. In their plans, they thought they may be able to collaborate with them if they will invade

00:07:41.580 the invasion play that Hezbollah published to occupy the Gali a decade ago. They thought they 0.60

00:07:48.220 will get collaboration of the Arabs in Israel over here in the Gali. But at the same time,

00:07:54.060 they don't care bombing them. In previous wars, we had casualties here in the Arab towns, just

00:08:00.780 next to where I live. We had a few casualties from the same family, a few women that were killed.

00:08:10.700 There is a Druze town not far from where I am that a few weeks ago, there was a drone attack

00:08:15.900 there against IDF soldiers that were next to the town. These things happen every day.

00:08:22.060 And we live together. And of course, there are players. I want to portray the whole reality,

00:08:29.500 which is very complex here. We live together. We are very proud of living together here.

00:08:35.500 And yet, yesterday, there was a stabbing attack in a town south to where I am from an Arab that

00:08:48.140 came from the nearby Arab town. He just crossed the street to the mall, and he stabbed two soldiers,

00:08:54.540 and he killed one of them. And the soldier that was stabbed and died from his wounds and succeeded in

00:09:01.740 killing the murderer and actually rescuing all the other people in the mall. For us, this is a terrible

00:09:07.580 incident because it tries to undermine the very unique way of life here of people that actually

00:09:16.460 accept each other and live together. But these things also happen.

00:09:23.900 Is there any indication of, well, I guess if things are warming up, there's probably not a plan to

00:09:33.900 bring back the people who live in that first five or so kilometers. What about the people in the rest?

00:09:39.660 You said that there are attacks going 30 kilometers deep. Will more people be evacuated? Or what is the plan for them?

00:09:48.780 Look, I live nine kilometers from the border. We are not evacuated. And the country, my community

00:09:56.460 absorbed displaced people from those areas that were evacuated. And we had sirens here.

00:10:02.620 And the whole region, again, the whole region today was on fire. It was a pretty crazy day. But it's an

00:10:09.420 example to the reality here. And most of the Hezbollah attacks are to the areas that are evacuated, like 90

00:10:17.340 something percent. But at the same time, the attacks of Hezbollah, which are not to the areas that are

00:10:23.660 evacuated, are attacks of rockets. And these are launched in barrages or attacks of drones that

00:10:30.780 send many people to shelters once they cross into Israel. So it's a huge disturbance of life, 1.00

00:10:37.980 also for those who were not evacuated and live next to the Israeli-Lebanese border. So in general,

00:10:45.500 we can say that life is not normal here in the north since October 8. And for your question about the

00:10:52.540 plan, we don't know what's the plan. I'm telling you the truth. We feel here that the Israeli government is 0.60

00:10:59.660 not interested in protecting us and escalating the situation in a way that will actually bring

00:11:10.220 the elimination of the threat on the Lebanese side and the threat posed by Hezbollah.

00:11:15.980 And we feel that the Israeli government prefers an agreement.

00:11:18.860 Well, I want to talk about should there be a fuller war in a moment. But first, let me ask you about

00:11:27.500 something you said there. You mentioned that most of the attacks from Hezbollah are into areas that are

00:11:32.620 evacuated. They know that they're evacuated as well. Why do you think they would be launching there instead

00:11:40.140 of attacking your town or the next town down the street? Are they trying to see how much they can

00:11:47.740 poke Israel? You know, poke the bear as opposed to doing something that would provoke a full-scale 0.92

00:11:55.100 attack on them?

00:11:55.820 Well, two reasons. First, there are military forces in those areas, and they are attacking. Today,

00:12:04.220 Hezbollah announced that it attacked 14 IDF bases. It's a good example to what's happening, 1.00

00:12:12.140 what happened today, because Hezbollah says, we attacked 14 IDF bases. That's why we attack areas 0.95

00:12:19.420 which are displaced, areas that are evacuated. But at the same time, it didn't use accurate weapon.

00:12:26.220 So the rockets, 200 rockets spread all over the place and caused a lot of damages. Now, just before

00:12:34.780 I came online, I heard that one soldier was killed. The second reason is that, as you said,

00:12:41.260 Hezbollah is interested in preserving the current situation and not enabling 0.97

00:12:45.740 those are displaced to go back to their homes and pushing Israel to the limits. 0.86

00:12:54.860 Eventually, Hezbollah was fully prepared to war before October 6. And I think that what the strategy 0.91

00:13:03.500 today is trying to either push Israel to initiate a war or just continue this war of attrition

00:13:12.460 that has its own advantages in the eyes of Hezbollah with regard to the Israeli society and resilience 0.87

00:13:19.100 and economy. And that's the overall rationality of this campaign, of this Iranian campaign,

00:13:24.380 is to create a war of attrition against the state of Israel.

00:13:28.020 You've used terms rockets, drones, missiles. Those of us living in the West that haven't lived in a war zone

00:13:34.620 are going to hear these terms and say, I don't really know what that is. Or I have an idea,

00:13:41.420 but is that really what it is? Can you help describe for us what kind of weapons they are using?

00:13:51.500 What is a rocket as opposed to a missile or the anti-tank missiles that are fairly accurate?

00:13:57.820 You said that they're not using accurate. I know that they do have anti-tank weapons. So what kind

00:14:04.700 of rocket is the type of thing that Hamas uses, where they've just taken pipe that was meant for 0.74

00:14:10.940 their water system and cut it into makeshift rockets? Is that what Hezbollah is using as well? 0.90

00:14:16.380 Or are they kitted out with very sophisticated weapons from their masters in Tehran? 0.77

00:14:21.900 It depends. Hezbollah is using various types. I'll start with the anti-tank missiles that you

00:14:27.900 mentioned. There is no connection to tanks. They are not targeting tanks necessarily. They are

00:14:33.420 targeting whatever. Homes, orchards, workers, farmers in the fields, soldiers, IDF positions,

00:14:41.660 sometimes tanks, whatever, are very accurate. Their full range is 10 kilometers, maybe even more

00:14:47.980 than that. Until today, they used around 10 kilometers range. We don't have a defensive answer

00:14:53.580 to this because anti-tank missiles cannot be intercepted by Iron Dome and we don't have alerts

00:14:59.500 before they hit. So that's a true problem and it's one of the main reasons that we cannot bring the

00:15:04.700 people back home. There is no way they will feel safe as long as Hezbollah is launching these. And these 1.00

00:15:10.940 are launched every game, maybe including now because I hear some blasts outside. That's one type.

00:15:17.660 The second type I want to talk about is the drones or actually UAVs and unmanned aerial vehicles.

00:15:25.180 Not very big, not very expensive. $20,000 to each drone like that can carry up to 40 kilograms of

00:15:33.900 explosives. Maybe they actually carry less than that. They are very accurate.

00:15:39.020 So that type of drone, it's not the type that we would buy in a Walmart for kids to play with.

00:15:46.620 No, that's not the small one.

00:15:47.820 A camera up above. And it's also not the type the Americans have where it's manned by someone

00:15:54.380 who is a trained fighter pilot. It's in between.

00:15:57.260 It's in between, even though they do have the small drones that you talked about.

00:16:01.740 But at least what is being published that Hezbollah is using here, in most cases,

00:16:06.620 these are actually actual drones, but not the most sophisticated ones, not the biggest ones that

00:16:12.780 you saw maybe in the media, like what we have, for example, Israel. And these are launched again

00:16:21.500 every day. And they got better in the past few months. And there was an increase in the amount

00:16:27.900 of attacks of drones in the past few months. And rapid increase, like from 10 attacks to

00:16:35.580 almost 100. And something really unbelievable with the amount of drones attacks that we experience

00:16:42.380 here. And they bypass and they are not always intercepted. And I can tell you that last Friday,

00:16:47.260 I saw it with my own eyes. I saw the jets and the Iron Dome and everybody tried to intercept the drones

00:16:54.220 from my balcony. And it was a beautiful sunset, but an unbelievable sight. And they missed. The drones

00:17:03.660 fell eventually. They were not intercepted. Two drones.

00:17:06.300 Do you mean to say that you or your area is experiencing up to 100 attacks a day?

00:17:16.940 No, not 100 attacks a day, a month. A month, 100 attacks a month of drones. Average could be less.

00:17:25.980 The average attacks of every month is around between 250 to 320. And we counted in every

00:17:36.140 map. The numbers are different, but that's the average to all of the area.

00:17:42.380 That's several attacks a day.

00:17:44.940 Yes, that's several attacks a day. Exactly.

00:17:48.860 So we've talked about the anti-tank missiles, which are not used on tanks, the drones. And then

00:17:56.780 what else do they have? Are they using the Hamas-style... 0.94

00:18:00.060 Yes. So when I'm talking about...

00:18:02.060 Makeshift rockets, or what are they getting from Tehran as well?

00:18:05.580 So when I'm talking about 200... First, we know that some of the Hezbollah arsenal 1.00

00:18:11.820 is manufactured in Tehran, in Iran, not necessarily Tehran. Some of it is manufactured in Syria,

00:18:18.140 to shorten the routes of smuggling. And some of it is manufactured in Lebanon.

00:18:23.580 Maybe drones are actually composed in Lebanon. Rockets, very probable option. Anti-tank missiles are

00:18:34.700 probably manufactured in Iran or in Syria, not even. Anyway, when we speak about the rockets that you

00:18:42.300 ask about. They have tens of thousands of these for various ranges. They are inaccurate. This is what

00:18:51.660 it's called statistic shooting. Some of them are at the quality of Hamas and others are better. 0.88

00:18:57.660 And so it's really various types of arsenal with various types. But they can be intercepted by Iron

00:19:07.660 Dome. That's the good news. The bad news is, as I've said, Iron Dome will not intercept rockets that are

00:19:13.420 about to fall in open areas, because every missile of Iron Dome worth $50,000. And we launch two in order

00:19:21.100 to intercept rockets and to make sure that we are not taking any chances. So eventually, you know, you're

00:19:29.100 trying to maximize the achievement and with regard to the costs. And that's why when they fall in open

00:19:35.980 areas like today, the Galilee and the Golan North and Israel actually burned today in so many fires. Like

00:19:43.260 25 teams of firefighters were trying to put off these fires everywhere in the North because of rockets that

00:19:50.300 fell in open areas and caused all these fires. And there is no 100%. We have many homes, tens of homes in

00:19:59.260 the North that were destroyed by rockets that fell in populated areas. Mostly, I think the majority in the

00:20:09.820 evacuated areas, meaning that there was very little damage to civilian life, but a lot of damage to property.

00:20:20.300 I want to get into this whole idea of should Israel go into all-out war with Hezbollah. We'll talk about 0.56

00:20:30.300 that when we come back. And also, I'll get you to, you know, give us an explainer on the connection

00:20:36.700 between Hezbollah and Iran. A connection that many people know about, but perhaps not how deep it is.

00:20:42.300 We'll talk about that when we come back. Sarit, I'm wondering if you could describe for us what Hezbollah

00:20:49.340 is. It's an organization that has been in the news in the West for decades. It comes and it goes. It's

00:20:56.780 not something that we live with on a daily basis. But this is a theocratic organization. It's an

00:21:04.700 organization based in Lebanon, but with deep ties to Iran. Where do they come from? What is their goal?

00:21:10.940 What are they pushing for now? Why are they attacking Israel?

00:21:14.620 I want to start with the goal, since you mentioned what's happening in Canada.

00:21:21.100 I don't know about Canada, but I saw in the protests in the United States,

00:21:26.860 people holding the yellow flags of Hezbollah. And people should know what does that mean.

00:21:32.060 When Hezbollah was established at the beginning of the 80s, it was founded as the Islamic revolution

00:21:42.700 in Lebanon. This was the title on the flag of Hezbollah. Islamic revolution in Lebanon means

00:21:50.140 to bring, to distribute the Islamic revolution values of Iran, of Khomeini, 0.64

00:21:54.380 into Lebanon. By the way, a project that succeeded. In the 90s, Hezbollah also became a political

00:22:04.940 party. And to date, it is completely embedded in the political system in Lebanon. It is a member of

00:22:12.620 the Lebanese government. I'll give you an example. There were publications about the fact that Hariri

00:22:19.340 the international airport in Beirut is used for smuggling of munitions to Hezbollah.

00:22:25.740 And then the Minister of Transportation denied that and brought journalists and ambassadors to

00:22:31.740 visit the airport. The Minister of Transportation is a Hezbollah member. He runs with the party of 0.90

00:22:39.020 Hezbollah in Lebanon in elections. There is no Lebanese government, because they couldn't 1.00

00:22:46.220 establish a coalition. There is no president in Lebanon. So Lebanon itself is a failed state

00:22:51.500 with a political and economic crisis. Hezbollah changed its flag in the 90s.

00:22:56.700 When we hear that, sorry, just a second. We hear that Hezbollah is part of the government,

00:23:02.380 but there isn't a functioning government. So how does that work?

00:23:06.060 It works with an interim government. There is a prime minister. There are ministers,

00:23:11.180 but they are not elected. And so Hezbollah is part of this, but they're not controlling everything.

00:23:18.060 No, they're not controlling everything. I wouldn't say that Hezbollah controls everything,

00:23:23.020 but I would say that beneath the surface, there is no political decision in Lebanon

00:23:28.220 that can be made without the concession of Hezbollah.

00:23:33.340 Which is very different from the way it was in the 80s and 90s.

00:23:36.620 And it's very different from the West, from any idea that we have on system of democracy,

00:23:43.820 on system of representation of the people. It doesn't work this way. There is the law and

00:23:50.620 there is the reality and there is a gap between them. When we talk about Hezbollah bombing Israel,

00:23:57.980 it's not the government of Lebanon. It's not the Lebanese army bombing Israel. It's the militia

00:24:04.540 belonging to the political party that's part of the government. Is that accurate?

00:24:09.820 Moreover, I agree. And I want to add and double. Moreover, it is also a social movement.

00:24:17.900 The reason that Hezbollah succeeded that much in using the Lebanese as human shields and hiding its 0.99

00:24:24.540 munition in Beirut International Airport, for example, or in the Shiite Muslim towns of South

00:24:30.780 Lebanon next to the border here, that's why they are being banned. It's because Hezbollah is a social 1.00

00:24:35.820 movement that changed its name from distribution of Islamic revolution to the Islamic resistance.

00:24:43.980 Resistance means resistance to Israel. Islamic means they want to create a Lebanese state that 0.94

00:24:50.140 also resists to Israel. That's it. That's eventually the end goal of Hezbollah. 0.99

00:24:54.380 What is a movement? A movement that provides every need of the population for food and fuel, electricity, water,

00:25:07.020 every community activity. Hezbollah is there for its people, for its own base. It replaced the Lebanese 1.00

00:25:14.460 government in this respect. And that's why it succeeded.

00:25:18.060 So is its power base in southern Lebanon, then, along the border?

00:25:26.060 Yes. Yes. Not only. In South Lebanon, in Beirut, and in the Baca Valley, not far from the Syrian border.

00:25:33.340 These are the areas of the Muslim Shiites of Lebanon.

00:25:37.260 And so there's the Sunni Muslims in Lebanon, the Shiite Muslims in Lebanon. They're about equal in terms of size.

00:25:44.700 No. No. No? Is that changed?

00:25:47.660 This was right two decades ago. Today, the assessments and its assessments, nobody knows the exact numbers,

00:25:55.980 is the Shiite Muslims of Lebanon are about half of the citizens of Lebanon.

00:26:00.700 Citizens. Lebanon is having between one to two million Syrian refugees that probably they are Sunnis,

00:26:09.340 but they are not citizens. We shouldn't be misled.

00:26:13.900 And then where is the Christian population in Lebanon?

00:26:16.620 About 20%.

00:26:17.740 Are they supportive of Hezbollah?

00:26:18.860 About 20%.

00:26:19.820 Down to 20%.

00:26:20.300 Most of them are against Hezbollah.

00:26:22.460 Most of them are against Hezbollah, but they don't have enough power to bring to a true change.

00:26:30.620 I'm sorry, that's the situation.

00:26:32.340 One of the things, no, no, no, this is why we're talking to you, because it is a vastly different

00:26:39.220 picture than what was there before.

00:26:41.060 Right.

00:26:42.420 One of the things that we hear about with the war down in Gaza is constantly this discussion of,

00:26:52.740 well, it's a war against Hamas, and Hamas is not the people of Gaza. And then you look at what the

00:27:01.300 people of Gaza support and you say, is that really true? So I want to ask you that about the areas along

00:27:08.180 the border specifically that Hezbollah controls. Is there a difference between Hezbollah and the people

00:27:15.940 that they govern? Are these people held hostage by Hezbollah or are they fully supportive of Hezbollah?

00:27:25.540 They are fully supportive of Hezbollah because Hezbollah is the people. Hezbollah is there. It's not a foreign

00:27:33.060 militia or foreign organization. It's a local organization that grew up. Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah,

00:27:40.180 comes from a family of South Lebanon. It is completely rooted in Lebanon. It adopted

00:27:50.020 a radical interpretation of the Shiite Islam of Iran. But it is a Lebanese organization,

00:27:58.580 a South Lebanese organization.

00:28:00.340 Well, how deep are the ties with Iran? Speaking with Sharon Haskell, a member of the Knesset a little

00:28:10.740 while ago, and she kept describing all of this as this is Iran's war, whether we're talking about

00:28:16.020 the fight with Hamas, the fight with Hezbollah, the fight with the Houthis in the Red Sea, said this is

00:28:22.420 Iran's war. Is Iran a controlling factor? Are they funders? Are they friends? How would you describe it?

00:28:30.740 The boss and the architects of everything that is happening. You know, I usually disagree with my

00:28:36.420 Knesset members, but this time I have to agree with them. Yes, the relationship between Hezbollah 1.00

00:28:44.900 and Iran are even deeper and closer than the relationship of Hamas with Iran.

00:28:54.500 But yet, all of it is part of the same campaign that the Iranians announced that they will open

00:29:02.180 against the State of Israel, and they named it, they branded it, other than name the Unification of

00:29:08.020 Fronts, before the War started, long before the War started. They said, they published that they are

00:29:15.220 building proxy militias all over the Middle East, in order to be capable to carry out this campaign,

00:29:24.180 Unification of Fronts, meaning to attack Israel from various fronts, South and North, East, and I

00:29:32.500 don't know, Yemen and Iraq and whatever. During the war, these messages will continue to be delivered

00:29:39.300 also by Hezbollah itself, and everything is with visuals and threads and videos and whatever,

00:29:44.820 a lot of PR around that. The relationship between Hezbollah and Iran is, you can compare it to a

00:29:51.380 relationship between an international company that Hezbollah is its most senior CEO. That's the

00:30:00.260 relationship. So they trust Hezbollah. They are a very good relationship. They listen to its needs,

00:30:08.420 to its considerations, to its interests. But at the same time, Iran is the boss. And it's a plan that 0.95

00:30:15.940 these proxy militias, especially Hezbollah, truly believe in. The leader of Hezbollah truly believe

00:30:21.940 in this ideology. He is ideologically motivated and his combatants are the same.

00:30:31.300 You mentioned earlier that there were a series of attacks over the last little bit because of

00:30:39.860 a senior Hezbollah leader being eliminated by Israel. They had a strike and took him out.

00:30:46.020 They appear to have taken out several senior Hezbollah. About 30.

00:30:50.900 Is that making a dent when you're taking out 30 members of a leadership team? Or are they just

00:30:57.940 so quickly replaced? It's a good question. I think it's too soon to say. But I must say that most of

00:31:06.180 those who were eliminated, or many of them, were senior that much that they were holding in their

00:31:13.220 positions for many years, which is very different. For example, if you compare it to the IDF,

00:31:20.100 officers are changing their positions every two, three years maximum. In Hezbollah, these guys were more

00:31:27.300 than 10 years in their positions. So definitely it's a loss and it has a meaning. And yet what we saw,

00:31:35.140 as I've said today, is that the same unit that its leader was assassinated yesterday, was killed

00:31:42.340 yesterday, executed these barrages of fire against us today. So they are capable of continuing the fire

00:31:52.340 against Israel. And it's not a solution. Killing commanders is important. It is damaging the 0.96

00:31:58.980 military capability of a terrorist organization like Hezbollah. But it is not eliminating the threat 0.80

00:32:07.140 from the Israeli-Lebanese border, the threat of rockets and everything we discussed, and the threat of

00:32:13.860 invasion for the long run. Maybe for now Hezbollah would not be interested to carry out a full-scale 0.97

00:32:19.460 invasion like Hamas had done in October 7th. But this motivation will exist. These capabilities 0.95

00:32:26.100 can be recovered once the fires stop. And I am very much worried of a scenario that after a few months

00:32:33.140 of a ceasefire, Hezbollah will take his turn to invade into Israel, according to the Iranian plan.

00:32:41.060 Are you able to fight the fires, actually, while the war is going on? Are they able to get in

00:32:50.740 there with water bombers or fire crews and deal with the fires? It's a challenge. There are areas that

00:32:57.700 the planes cannot fly, and it's a huge challenge. And that's why we have a lot of damages.

00:33:02.820 And as we speak, there are many fires that are still on the line, since the morning.

00:33:09.460 Okay. We had a statement come out from the National Council of Canadian Muslims, urging the Trudeau

00:33:16.500 government to speak out against the expansion of Netanyahu's war. That Netanyahu started a war,

00:33:26.660 in their view, in the South against Hamas. And now they're going to expand that war into Lebanon.

00:33:37.620 That obviously is the view of some people around the world. That is obviously not your view,

00:33:43.540 because you don't think that the Israeli government is doing enough for the people of Lebanon.

00:33:49.700 No, it's not my view, because we didn't start that. 1,200 Israelis were killed in October 7th. We didn't

00:33:57.220 start that. I understand that. I'm telling you what is being said here by people that have the ear of

00:34:04.260 the prime minister, unfortunately. But is Netanyahu or the Israeli government, are they doing enough for

00:34:14.420 the people of Northern Israel right now? No, they don't. They're not doing enough. People have been

00:34:21.220 away from their homes nine months. Nobody's doing enough. The world is not doing enough. Nobody's

00:34:25.700 doing enough. Lebanon is not doing enough. So what has to happen then? Does there need to be an invasion 1.00

00:34:33.620 of Southern Lebanon to beat back Hezbollah? Does there need to just be an air campaign to flatten 0.98

00:34:41.300 positions and essentially say, don't make us come back? Look, to tell you that I support a

00:34:51.300 full-scale war with boots on the ground, it's very difficult for me and I think for every Israeli to

00:34:58.500 say that, because we send our kids to the army. We are all soldiers. It's compulsory service in Israel.

00:35:08.180 So we prefer not to get to a situation of another front and a full-scale war and a ground operation

00:35:19.300 in Lebanon. Lebanon is our nightmare and we had withdrawn unilaterally from Lebanon in 2000,

00:35:26.340 hoping that it would bring peace and security to our Northern border and it didn't happen. Hezbollah just 1.00

00:35:32.340 became stronger since we had withdrawn from South Lebanon. We didn't get anything out of this

00:35:38.100 withdrawal actually. They built position next to the border, next to our communities.

00:35:45.380 So Israel will go to a full-scale war against Lebanon only if there is no other choice, only if there 0.72

00:35:54.580 won't be any other solution that will enable us to bring the people back home. I think that with the 1.00

00:36:00.100 search of this solution, we need the help of international community. We need the understanding

00:36:06.820 of the international community that the solution by itself, or I would put it this way, the agreement

00:36:12.340 by itself is not a solution. Okay, the implementation of the agreement is the solution. And as I've said,

00:36:19.140 there is a gap between the two. Which agreement?

00:36:21.300 Whatever agreement we will reach. There was an agreement that ended the previous war that said

00:36:26.980 that Hezbollah should be disarmed in the areas next to the border, 25 kilometers from the border,

00:36:33.700 up to 25 kilometers from the border. It never happened. Hezbollah never respected the United Nations 0.62

00:36:40.420 Security Council resolution that said that. It just never happened. So if we want to have another

00:36:46.740 diplomatic arrangement again, we need to make sure there is an effective monitoring force

00:36:54.740 that can make sure that Hezbollah is disarmed in these areas. Now, this means that the monitoring

00:37:01.620 force will understand that it has to clash with Hezbollah because it will not voluntarily disarm 0.99

00:37:09.540 in these areas. It's just not going to happen.

00:37:12.580 What next for you and for your family?

00:37:15.780 We don't know. You know, the most certain thing here is uncertainty. We can't make plans for the

00:37:21.620 summer. We don't know whether if we talk in two, three weeks, everything will get crazy here. We

00:37:29.300 don't know if we'll talk in two, three months. There will be a ceasefire, but I will be afraid of

00:37:35.300 another invasion because nobody is doing anything about Hezbollah capabilities on the other side of the

00:37:41.140 border. We don't know how we are going to bring the people back to their homes if Hezbollah is still 1.00

00:37:46.820 on the other side of the border and they are looking at the terrorist's eyes. And I saw them

00:37:50.740 every day, so I know how they look like. I saw them. They were on the border. I was there every day.

00:37:56.260 We truly don't know how all of this is going to play out. The only thing I do know, and I keep

00:38:03.220 saying that again and again and again, that this is not a threat just against us Israelis,

00:38:09.300 as we already discussed, Jewish or not Jewish doesn't matter. This is a threat against the 1.00

00:38:16.580 Iranian view this campaign. This is the Iranian campaign against the Western presence in the

00:38:23.540 Middle East. Do we want to help the Iranians eliminate the Western presence in the Middle East, 1.00

00:38:29.380 which is Israel? And West, I mean by values. We share values of democracy and human rights. Yes,

00:38:36.180 we share values of human rights here in Israel. Those who visit here know that.

00:38:42.900 What do we want? What do we share? These are very deep questions that should be asked

00:38:48.740 when we try to analyze the current campaign and what is happening now in the Middle East.

00:38:54.500 It's not Israel-Hamas war, Israel-Kizbar war. That's not the story.

00:38:58.340 It's Iran's war against the West. And if they succeed in eliminating Israel, 0.94

00:39:06.660 I don't think that they stop there. They're already not stopping there.

00:39:13.220 All right, Sarit, thanks so much for your time. Thank you for having me.

00:39:18.100 The Alma Center produces open source material that can help you understand what's going on. Do check

00:39:23.140 out their website and get a better sense for yourself of what is happening. Full Comment is a

00:39:29.540 post-media podcast. My name is Brian Lilly, your host. This episode was produced by Andre Pru with

00:39:34.260 theme music by Bryce Hall. Kevin Libin is the executive producer. Remember to subscribe to Full

00:39:39.300 Comment on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. Leave us a rating or a review

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Full Comment - July 08, 2024

Here’s what it’s like living under Hezbollah’s constant attacks

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