Transcribe your podcast
[00:00:00]

We're heading towards Kephakela in South Lebanon. We're with the UN, which is on the front lines and has been for the past nine months, caught in this deadly and dangerous, increasing conflict between Lebanon's Hezbollah and the Israeli military.

[00:00:16]

Tensions between the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group and the Israeli military have been heating up. Since October the eighth, when Hezbollah first fired rockets into Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian people, the two sides have exchanged have changed nearly 5,000 attacks. The majority have come from Israel, but data shows Hezbollah is changing its tactics, with its strikes reaching deeper into Israeli territory than ever before. The majority of attacks have been concentrated along their shared border. On the Lebanese side, nearly 100,000 people have been displaced by the fighting.

[00:00:53]

This is the next village along from Kepher Kela El Haarisa, and a lot of it is flattened. I mean, houses just flattened. No way they're going to be able to return here anytime soon.

[00:01:06]

While Israel has evacuated dozens of towns within three kilometers of the border, leaving nearly 60,000 people displaced.

[00:01:14]

The fact that the Israelis have basically had to seed areas of Northern Israel to Hezbollah in effect, because no Israelis can currently live there because of the rocket fire, is a huge organizational psyche blow to the IDF, but also like national culture blow to the Israeli people.

[00:01:34]

It's not just the border region that's in the line of fire. Israel has been striking deep into Lebanon for some time, but only relatively recently is Hezbollah starting to do the same. On July the seventh, Hezbollah launched a barrage of rockets targeting an IDF site in the Lower Galilee, its furthest attack into Israeli territory to date. The group has also been flexing its ability to get through Israeli air defenses. In June, they released drone footage of surveillance missions over Israeli military sites in Haifa, a major city on the Coast.

[00:02:07]

The fact that the IDF can't stop the drones over flying Haifa has a big psychological impact on the Israelis and can create domestic political friction. That domestic political friction does have impacts on a hypothetical war effort.

[00:02:24]

Every day, the edge closer and closer to full-on war. Although both sides have said to avoid it, the actions and the indications are we're heading in that direction.