The Slide Toward War in Lebanon

from The New York Times I'm Sabrina. tavernes and this is the. daily last week after the Israeli. military detonated thousands of pagers. and walkie-talkies across Lebanon aimed. at the militant group Hezbollah the. question was what would happen. next over the past 5 days we've gotten. an answer the strikes came in way aves.

one after. another in a series of attacks across. Lebanon including in densely populated. parts of its capital. Beirut those attacks sent the country. into high alert thousands of people in. the South have been fleeing their homes. and prompted Panic among Lebanese. civilians okay there's a lot lot of.

panic people are makinging their way out. of this area a few minutes ago there's. been another air strike you can see the. smoke as of Tuesday night the death toll. stood at more than 600 according to the. Lebanese Health Ministry with more than. 27,000 people in. shelters. today my colleague Ben hubard on the. origins of the spiraling conflict. between Israel and its most feared.

Regional. adversary it's Wednesday September. [Music]. 25th so Ben over the last several days. it really feels like we've come closer. to an allout war between Israel and the. Lebanese militia group Hezbollah than. we've ever been you have a long history. reporting on this group and their conf.

with Israel I wonder what you've been. thinking as you've been watching things. develop over the past few days so I've. been watching this conflict between hbal. and Israel for a long long time and I've. never seen anything like what we've seen. over the last week we had pagers blow up. in the hands of people across Lebanon. the next day we had walkie-talkies blow. up in also inflicting damage right after. that we had a very high level. assassination of a senior hasbalah. military leader and some of his comrades.

in Beirut in an Israeli air strike and. then we had more than a thousand air. strikes across Lebanon particularly in. places where Hezbollah has a lot of. power and we're watching this happen and. then we see the death toll just going up. and up and up and by Monday night it was. over 500 people it included women and. children and very soon we realized that. this is actually the deadliest day in. Lebanon for many many decades and this. of course is very different than what. we've seen over the past 11 months since.

October 7th which is that Hezbollah. began to fire into Israel after October. 7th in solidarity with its Ally Hamas. this is taking things up to a very. different and very new level yeah very. soon after the Gaza War started. Hezbollah jumped in and started firing. on Israel and the idea was to try to bog. Israel down on the northern border so. that it couldn't focus entirely on Gaza. and both sides kind of had this. understanding that they would continue. this battle they would strike each other. but they would try to keep things in.

certain bounds they try to sort of keep. it confined to the Border area and not. sort of let this blow up into a much. bigger war and for many many months that. worked I mean they they basically did. manage to keep it confined and so the. question as we were watching this was. always what would it take for this to. spiral out of control and in my trips to. Lebanon talking to heala people and. talking to other people close to the. movement they tended to mention three. things they talked about high level. assassin ations of Hezbollah leaders.

they talked about strikes directly on. beout and not just along the southern. border and they talked about the killing. of large numbers of Lebanese civilians. and all of a sudden last week the. Israelis carried out this massive. escalation in this battle and very. quickly checked all three of those boxes. and why is that what changed well. there's a few reasons for this one is. that there's a lot of political pressure. inside of Israel on the leadership you. have somewhere around 60,000 Israel who.

have fled their homes in the north. because they're worried about getting. hit by missiles fired by Hezbollah so. there's a lot of pressure on the. political leadership to find a way for. these people to return home and then as. far as we can tell the capabilities for. some of the early attacks specifically. the pager explosions and walkie-talkie. explosions had basically been set in. motion a while ago and we have reporting. suggesting that Hezbollah had discovered. this and the Israelis sort of realized. they needed to use this or they were. going to lose it so those two element.

came together and we've had this. astounding series of attacks on. Hezbollah that have changed the entire. shape of this conflict right there's. been this barrage of Rocket fire and. bombings including in Beirut and. everything we've seen so far has. indicated that there are a lot of. Lebanese civilians caught in the. crossfire what are the Israelis saying. that they're doing here well before all. of this started on Monday morning prime. minister Benjamin Netanyahu put out a. video that was addressed to the Lebanese. telling that basically that Hezbollah.

has been using them as human Shields. putting Rockets near their homes sort of. dragging them into this war and that all. of these Rockets are a threat to Israel. and so Israel was going to come in and. try to take out this military. infrastructure and he asks the Lebanese. to basically get out of the way say if. you are anywhere close to anything that. has to do with hezbo you better leave. which is probably very little soulless. for those families who've actually been. affected by this I mean after all you. don't necessarily know where a Hezbollah. installation is.

but why this move away from Gaza when. Hamas is the one that attacked Israel on. October 7th for a very long time Israel. has regarded Hezbollah as one of the. largest threats on its border and even. before the Hamas attack last October. Israeli officials were much more worried. about Hezbollah than they were worried. about Hamas and so this has been. something that kind of has been in the. air for a very long time and people in. the Israeli security establishment have. sort of felt like we're eventually going. to need to go and kind of take care of. this hasala problem and sort of get them.

off of our border and now it seems like. they've at least taken very very. significant steps in that direction and. it's still unclear how far it's going to. go I mean it's already gotten to be much. much bigger than it was and now. everybody is wondering what's next is. there going to be continuous air strikes. trying to take out hezbollah's. infrastructure military infrastructure. or is it possible that the Israelis are. going to launch a ground Invasion okay. so now that an allout war between Israel. and has is a real possibility including.

as you say potentially even up to an. invasion of Lebanon I wonder Ben if you. could explain the broader context for. all of this how did these two start. fighting in the first place so as it. turns out the conflict actually dates. back to a ground invasion of. Lebanon they said they didn't want to. take Beirut unless they had to but they. came in the 1980s Israel invaded they. crossed the border in 1982 to to try to.

get militants off of their border and. they stayed they basically set up a. military occupation of the south of the. country the Israelis said they had one. goal to root out once and for all. Palestinian bases across the border from. their Northern settlements and then to. and the Shiite Lebanese who were a. majority in the South weren't very happy. to have them there and so a group forms. that came to be known as Hezbollah. Hezbollah gorillas launched two salvos. across the border from Lebanon.

retaliation they say for Israel's. shelling of South Lebanon on Friday. which was at the time an underground. resistance force trying to get these. Invaders off of Lebanese soil and they. did this with the help of Iran which. provided them with support and funding. and it worked basically from now on in. Lebanon May the 25th will be a holiday. the national day of resistance and. Liberation to celebrate the departure of. the Israelis from the south they became. a very effective Guerilla Force.

attacking Israeli forces and in 2000 the. Israelis packed up and left and for. isbella this was a huge victory for them. and something that was noticed across. the rest of the. [Music]. region and they didn't stop they. continued to expand following an. ideology of the resistance which in. their terminology is this sort of shared. vision of these forces across the region. coming together to ultimately destroy.

Israel and this is very deeply rooted in. religious ideology that they share with. Iran and it kind of guides them forward. and I should mention that Israel the. United States and other countries. consider Hezbollah a terrorist. organization so at this point Hezbollah. has emerged as a clear antagonist to. Israel what's the next kind of flash. point in this fight between these two. adversaries so Hezbollah continues to. develop its role in Lebanese politics. it's military.

capabilities and in 2006 some of its. Fighters launch a crossb raid on Israel. they kill a number of soldiers and they. capture two and bring them back to. Lebanon I'm calling to the people who. kidnapped him send us a sign of life. from my son and this sets off gigantic. devastating war between Israel and. Hezbollah a very bloody one as I. remember as I covered it yes Israel had. to respond to this absolutely provoked. assault whose scale and depth was.

unprecedented in recent years Israel. pummels South Lebanon and lots of. Lebanese infrastructure across the. country in air strikes launches a ground. Invasion tries to come back in since the. beginning of the war there have been. virtually no supplies being brought into. Lebanon that means that Lebanon to all. intents and purposes has been shut off. from the outside world and this drags on. for about 34 days more than a thousand. Lebanese are killed K about 150 people.

are killed in Israel hugely hugely. destructive War the head of Hezbollah. pledged to wage an open war against. Israel and hella shows itself to be an. incredibly capable gorilla Force forces. inside Lebanon fired hundreds of rockets. at Israeli border towns and a warship. they have tunnels dug in South Lebanon. they have bunkers they use a lot of the. landscape they basically wait for the. Israelis to come into these towns and. villages and then sort of pop up out of.

nowhere fire anti-tank missiles lay. ambushes and it's incredibly effective. and basically they reach a point where. neither side figures they can go much. further and it brings the war to a. stalemate and even though Lebanon has. been devastated by this war hezb walks. out of it looking like Heroes once again. instead of being sort of this crappy. force that fought the occupation now.

they're one of the few forces in the. region that can say we stood up against. the Israeli military and stopped them. from even coming in yeah I remember. watching those Hezbollah Fighters emerge. From The Trenches on the day that Israel. withdrew and they were really walking. with the confidence of Victorious men. despite the fact that there had been. massive casualties on the Lebanese side. they really were acting as though they. had won yes and this has an effect.

inside of Lebanon and in the broader. region inside of Lebanon their military. forces get stronger and more effective. and they start to evolve into what a lot. of people have called the state within a. state they have their own TV station. where they broadcast the news basically. of how they see the world they start. providing widespread Social Services. mainly to their poor people in sort of. their base community and they begin to. play an even stronger role in Lebanese. politics participating in parliamentary.

votes and government formation and. things like that they just start. becoming a bigger part of the mix and. Lebanon has an incredibly weak Central. State this is a country that suffered a. terrible terrible 15-year Civil War that. it basically never recovered from so it. does have an army but the Army is not. incredibly powerful and Hezbollah is. just basically not subject to anybody's. control they never have to ask. permission from anybody to do what they. want to do so you know they have members.

in Parliament and they usually have a. handful of people in the cabinet but. that's not what they're really. interested in what they're really. interested in is their broader military. project and they basically draw a very. clear line around their military. activities and they will not let anyone. else get involved or tell them what to. do or not to do okay so that's on the. domestic front but you mentioned that. the 2006 war and its outcome really had. an effect on the broader region as well. so what was that so hezbollah's.

performance in the 2006 War really puts. them on the map regionally there's. people across the region who are used to. basically Arab armies being humiliated. by the Israelis and then all of a sudden. this militia stands up and stops the. Israelis from invading their country and. so they kind of develop this Aura as. this kind of people's Army and you start. seeing people flying Hezbollah flags and. putting up pictures of Hassan nasah the. leader of Hezbollah you would see it in. Cairo you could see it in Damascus and. people that are against Israel and might.

feel that their governments are not. doing enough to sort of work against. Israel and then all of a sudden you have. wow this is the real. resistance and that really raises their. stock across the Arab world and they run. with. it Hezbollah goes through basically. another transformation and instead of. just being a force focused on fighting. Israel they expand into the rest of the. Arab world they start intervening in. Regional conflicts sending their people. abroad to help out other militias and.

this is when things start to. [Music]. backfire we'll be right. back so Ben what does it look like when. Hezbollah expands its footprint in the. Middle East tell me about that so you.

remember that from the early days. Hezbollah is very close with Iran and. Iran has this idea of the axis of. resistance the AIS of resistance is. supposed to be this network of forces. throughout the Arab world that are. opposed to the United States and that. are opposed to Israel and are trying to. push back on their interests in the. region so these forces exist in. different countries and Hezbollah is. kind of the senior member they're sort. of like the older brother of all of. these other militias everybody looks up. to them and sort of see them as this. exper enced party that can kind of help.

them get their act together and after. 2011 this axis starts to take. off and Hezbollah is really the. connective. tissue Hezbollah starts sending out. experts and they start sending out. fighters in less than a year Hezbollah. has turned the tables for Syria's once. baguer president Bashar al-assad their. Shia Ally they get involved in Syria's. Civil War they go to try to help the.

government of Bashar Al Assad put down a. rebellion against his rule the group is. now perceived as killing Sunni civilians. inside Syria on Iran's request and they. train Fighters there and they work. alongside them and many of them. participate in. battle we may not have spoken about Iraq. before but we have later they send. fighters to Iraq they send Fighters and. trainers to Yemen let's go to any place. where we can fight this threat that is. threatening our Muslim and our.

region so they're kind of freelancing in. a way around the Middle East yes yes. exactly and many of the Arab governments. are watching this happen and sort of. wondering why this group that claims to. be focused on fighting Israel is. suddenly popping up and trying to help. Iran out and worse than that Hezbollah. is actually killing other Arabs they are. fighting on behalf of the Syrian. government and they're killing people on. the other side and so it begins to. tarnish has B's Regional standing and.

its Regional. reputation so that's a very big shift in. a very short period of time for. Hezbollah yeah it's a big shift and. there's a somewhat similar shift that. takes place around the same time inside. of. Lebanon Lebanon as I said before has an. incredibly weak Central State and the. country basically starts to fall apart a.

tragedy is unfolding in Lebanon. inflation has driven the country's. currency to historical lows the economy. starts falling apart the banking system. begins to fail attacks on banks. everywhere and people demanding their. money they've been locked out of their. accounts since the financial crisis. began in late. 2019 people are going to the banks and. trying to get their money out and the. banks basically say we don't have your. money anymore wow the state electricity. network has again collapsed a lack of. fuel forced lebanon's largest power.

stations to shut down it's the for. there's an electricity crisis where. people are going for days without. electricity I mean it gets to be very. very miserable and it creates a lot of. anger against this political. establishment that's been ruling Lebanon. for a long. [Music]. time so in 2019 a protest movement. begins to try to get rid of them protest. 1.5 million people that is a quarter of. the population have taken to the streets.

over the last 5 days people chant. revolution revolution we want the fall. of the regime people pour into the. streets they come out in downtown Beirut. and in other cities basically calling. for a toppling of the regime we need to. get rid of these people who've been. running our country because they've done. such a terrible job and interestingly. many of them consider Hezbollah as part. of this establishment people come out. and they chant against Hezbollah the way. that they chant against the other IAL. parties and they very much see them as.

players in this corrupt system that has. brought the country to this kind of. breaking. point so in other words by. 2023 Hezbollah is much diminished And. yet when it comes to October 7th when. Hamas attacks Israel Hezbollah behaves. very much in a way that is not. diminished it it actually starts. attacking Israel in solidarity with with. Hamas why does it do that so this.

actually fits in very well with. hezbollah's sort of more recent activity. of trying to strengthen this axis of. resistance trying to work with these. other anti-israel forces in the region. so Hamas attacks Israel Hamas is a. member of the axis of resistance Israel. goes to war with Hamas and hbal says. basically we need to help Hamas out and. that's what gets us into what we saw. over the last 11 months the sort of low. boil War along the Lebanon Israel border.

and then all of a sudden we hit this. last week and it all falls apart Israel. launches this massive escalation and. Hezbollah doesn't seem to have seen it. coming at all walk me through what. hezbollah's response has been so far in. terms of statements it's been largely. Defiance hasb leaders have come out. they've promised to keep fighting. they've promis to get Vengeance against. Israel for these attacks militarily it's. been more of the same they are still. launching missiles and Rockets across.

the border at Israeli targets there has. not been significant damage or. significant casualties reported on the. Israeli side and you know I think. everybody sort of expected that because. of hezbollah's capabilities if something. like this happened they would be able to. mount a really large response and they. haven't and people are still trying to. figure out exactly why that is is that. because they're just unable to do it. either because too many of their people. on the border have been wounded or. killed is is it because they can't. communicate enough to organize sort of a.

broad attack or is it that they're kind. of wishing that they could take things. back to the way that they were last. month where you know they can have this. war going with Israel and they're. hitting things but it's not sort of. escalating into this gigantic War so. just tying all of this together Ben what. do you make of hezbollah's position here. the group is just in a much different. place than the sort of hero status that. it used you have when it was the one.

standing up to Israel and winning they. are in a much much different place both. in the region and in Lebanon around the. region I think that there's a lot of. sadness about the civilian deaths in. Lebanon and and I think people are very. concerned about the damage that's being. done in Lebanon but you hear much less. sort of sadness about Hezbollah I don't. see a lot of people sort of mourning. that Hezbollah has taken these hits and. I think that's cuz there were a lot of. people in the region that were. sort of fed up with what they had been.

up to and inside of Lebanon as well I. think that you know there had always. been this idea that Hezbollah is there. to defend us from Israel and to resist. against Israel and but during this war. you know there were definitely a lot of. Lebanese who sort of asked why did you. get us involved in this why are you. dragging Lebanon into hamas's war and so. I think people are worried about what. Israeli action could do whether there's. going to be a ground Invasion how that's. going to be terrible for the country but. I don't think that is a lot of people. worried about what it means for the.

future of Hezbollah so Ben is it. possible that given all of this you know. hezbollah's weaken stature domestically. and in the region and their loss of key. leaders in these most recent round of. attacks that there might actually be a. real chance here that Israel could. achieve its goal of incapacitating. Hezbollah this threat that they fear. most it's very hard to predict where. this is going but I can throw out a few. ideas it seems quite clear that. Hezbollah today is not what it was that.

it has been hit incredibly hard as an. organization on multiple levels this. includes taking out many senior Leaders. with lots of experience this includes. taking out a lot of middle management. and it includes hitting the rank and. file and so really across the structure. this is an organization that has taken a. deep deep blow and from what we've seen. so far they're either not capable or. choosing not to respond militarily to. what the Israelis have done so that. suggests that the organization is. damaged and that it could be more.

difficult for them to move forward but. in terms of the question of you know has. Israel achieved or could it achieve what. it sets out to do I think that's a much. different question Israel has tried to. get quiet on its northern border by. invading Lebanon before twice and it's. has not worked and if you make a. comparison with Hamas Israel has been at. war with Hamas now for 11 months Hamas. is by all accounts a less sophisticated. less experienced fighting force than and. Hezbollah they're also basically trapped.

inside of Gaza they have closed borders. they can't move in and out and bring. equipment in and out the way that they. would like to and Israel has still. really struggled to try to destroy this. organization as they set out to. do Hezbollah on the other hand is more. sophisticated it has the open borders of. Lebanon to rearm to move Fighters and to. do other kinds of logistics so even. though serious damage has been done to. this organization it's premature to.

conclude that we've reached its. [Music]. demise Ben thank you thank. you on Wednesday in a sign of defiance. has buo fired a ballistic missile at Tel. Aviv the first time the group had fired. so deeply into Israeli territory the. missile which as bua said was aimed at. Israel's intelligence agency was.

ultimately shot down by Israel's. military and caused no damage or. injuries meanwhile Israel's attacks into. Lebanon. [Music]. continued we'll be right. back here's what else you should know. today my fellow leaders let us never. forget. some things are more important than.

staying in. power it's your people in his final. speech to the United Nations General. Assembly on Tuesday President Biden made. a full-throated defense for America's. continued involvement in conflicts in. Europe and the Middle East framing his. four years in office as part of a vital. effort to safeguard democracy when. Russia invaded Ukraine we could have. stood by and merely protested. but vice president Harris and I.

understood that that was an assault on. everything this institution supposed to. stand for speaking on the United States. defense of Ukraine against Russia's. Invasion the president said that America. and its allies had quote ensured the. survival of Ukraine as a free Nation but. warned that Ukraine's power to hold off. Russia could be fleeting innocent. civilians in Gaza are also going through. hell thousands and thousand kills.

including Aid workers too many families. dislocated crowding in the tents facing. a dire humanitarian situation on the. Middle East Biden made a point of. highlighting civilian casualties in Gaza. and said Israel and Hamas should sign on. to his ceasefire and hostage plan while. also reiterating his long-held position. that Israel has the right to defend. itself but he refrained from weighing in. with specific pacifics on Israel's.

actions in Lebanon saying only that his. administration was quote determined to. prevent a wider war and that even as the. situation had escalated he believed that. a diplomatic solution was still. [Music]. possible today's episode was produced by. Diana win will Reed Shel Banja and Eric.

krupy it was edited by Mark George. contains original music by Marian Lozano. Rowan Nimo and Dan Powell and was. engineered by Chris Wood our theme music. is by Jim runberg and Ben Lanser of. [Music]. wonderly special thanks to you and Ward. Qui Asad Christina gold Bal and Vivien y.

[Music]. that's it for the daily I'm Sabrina. Tavern see you tomorrow. [Music].