All-out war between Hezbollah and Israel 'would be catastrophic'

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00:00And this all coming as the world is waiting to see how Israel will respond to what was the deadliest

00:05cross-border incident in months of exchanges of fire between its forces and the Lebanese

00:10Shia militant group Hezbollah. Twelve teenagers and children were killed in an Arab Druze town

00:16last weekend in the annexed Golan Heights after a rocket attack believed to be fired by Hezbollah.

00:23There are fears that this attack could result in an all-out regional war. In the meantime,

00:28Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the location.

00:35These children are our children. They are the children of us all. The State of Israel cannot

00:41and will not let it pass. A response will come and it will be severe.

00:48And joining me now is Simon Mabon, a Middle East specialist at the UK's Lancaster University. Simon,

00:53thank you for your time. When it comes to a regional war, both sides resemble America and

00:58Russia during the Cold War, as in there's always the threat. There's always the threat,

01:03but neither Israel or Hezbollah really want an all-out war, do they?

01:09No, they don't. I don't think anyone wants an all-out war. The devastation of that would be

01:14catastrophic. The repercussions of it would be huge. It runs the risk of pulling in lots of

01:20different states in the region. The neighbouring states are the militias that are operating across

01:25the region. They run the risk of involving the US, the UK and many others. So nobody wants this

01:33to escalate. There is a lot of diplomatic pressure being put on on all sides to ensure that things do

01:39not escalate right now. But I don't think either the Israelis nor Hezbollah and certainly not others

01:45in Lebanon want to see this escalate further. Do you think that rocket was actually aimed for

01:51Majal al-Sham or was it an accident? I can't imagine that anyone would

01:56deliberately target children. I think it's a truly abhorrent thing to do. Whether they

02:04targeted what they see as an occupied village in the Golan Heights, I'm not sure because Hezbollah

02:11is ultimately denying that it was them. They are denying that they were involved in this.

02:16But it seems pretty clear that the Israelis believe it was Hezbollah. So it's a bit of a tricky one.

02:25So with this in mind, where does this leave Israel in terms of options?

02:31Well, we know that Benjamin Netanyahu has been given the right to take the call as to what the

02:36appropriate response will and should be. So given everything that we know about Netanyahu,

02:43he takes a very strong, firm stance against any type of terror attacks that protect Israeli lives.

02:50And that suggests that there will be a firm response against Hezbollah. But we've already

02:58seen types of responses against Hezbollah attacks against Israel. So it risks increasing this

03:06escalation that we've been seeing in the months since the October 7th attacks and what's happened

03:13in Gaza. So I worry that this will contribute to an increase, not necessarily a dramatic regional

03:21conflict, but it will certainly have a vociferous and firm response that will devastate the lives

03:30of ordinary people in Lebanon, which runs the risk of then having a knock-on impact in Israel.

03:36So there has to be some type of diplomatic solution here,

03:39because this cannot continue in the way that it's going.

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