Israel says more strikes are coming against a Hezbollah-run financial institution

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00:00Aaron Bregman, Senior Teaching Fellow at the Department of War at King's College in London.

00:05Aaron, thank you for joining us here on France 24. We appreciate your time.

00:09Thank you, Mark.

00:10You have experience, I understand, of Israeli military operations in Lebanon from your previous

00:14career with the IDF. Give us a sense of what is going through the minds of the people who

00:20are behind the operation right now.

00:22The Israelis are operating in two locations now. They operate along the border between Israel

00:29and Lebanon on the northern side of it, clearing it. It will take a few weeks for them to complete

00:36the job. And they are now after the assets of Hezbollah, doing it from the air, mainly in the

00:45Dahiya area, the southern part of Beirut. The Israelis are after money which belongs to Hezbollah

00:56offices and other assets. That's what's going on in Lebanon at the moment.

01:04And then what you have is a war of attrition between Hezbollah and Israel, with Hezbollah

01:11regrouping and hitting hard at Israel with rockets and also drones. They land on average

01:20of 200 rockets on Israel. That's quite a lot. And sending drones in all directions,

01:27which the Israelis find very difficult to stop. It's a big war.

01:31Aaron, tell us more about this financial aspect. Clearly, there were a series of strikes on a

01:37particular banking network which was accused of laundering Hezbollah cash. Where is this cash

01:44coming from? How much is there? How is it being used?

01:48Well, I don't believe that Hezbollah keeps the cash, all of it, you know,

01:56under hospitals, etc. It's like you and I, we have some cash in our pockets,

02:01just when you have to pay for things. Most of it is probably, most of the money assets are kept

02:09in banks all over the world. What the Israelis are trying to do is to make it difficult

02:17for Hezbollah to run the war, so they will not have money to pay salaries. And also to,

02:25what the Israelis are trying to do is to drive a wedge between Hezbollah and its people,

02:32so that the people working for it or fighting for it will complain that they are not paid their

02:38salary. According to the Israelis, Hezbollah gets its money from drug dealings and things like

02:47that, but I cannot confirm that. In terms of what is happening right now on the ground,

02:53if we think back to 2006, the Israel-Hezbollah war at that point, when images of children being

02:59killed were hitting international TV screens, then the international community moved and things were

03:05brought to a halt. Matters are much worse now, given what's happened in Gaza, the scale of death

03:11there, given what's happening in Lebanon right now. When do you think, Aaron, the United States,

03:17because presumably their decision and their position will change things, when do you think

03:22the United States will say enough is enough? Well, you know, at the moment, in fact, Blinken

03:29is in Israel, he just finished his meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu. They are not talking

03:36about the things that, you know, disturb you and me, casualties and civilians. They are talking about

03:45things like Iran now, because very soon our attention and the center of gravity will move

03:52to Iran. I think that it's going to happen in the coming days. The pictures that are coming

03:59out of Gaza and Lebanon too now are awful and very disturbing. In terms of what we're looking

04:07at then, this is the US helping to create a wall against the kind of advance of Iranian influence.

04:15Yeah, yeah. Is it working? Well, I'm not sure. The Americans and the Israelis regard

04:23Iran as the, they call it the head of the snake. But they are hitting the proxies at the moment.

04:32I believe that our attention again will be shifted very soon to Iran. And I think that

04:39with the Israelis being very busy with Iran, expecting a retaliation from Iran, it might be

04:46the things in Beirut will be easy for the people there, because the Israelis will be busy as well.

04:54Another call to evacuate southern Beirut has just been issued.

04:59That is a prelude to another attack by Israel on southern Beirut.

05:03Yeah, and there were reports now, just before shifting to you, I had a look in Israeli

05:10TV, television outlets and newspapers, and they are talking about Israeli activities

05:17in the skies of Lebanon. So I think that an attack is probably on the way or coming very soon.

05:26As you're talking to us, Aaron, and we appreciate your analysis and the fairness of your analysis.

05:30The images are telling another story in many ways, because the Israeli military will talk about

05:37pinpoint accuracy and the way they're targeting certain

05:41enemy targets. And they say the war is with Hezbollah. It's not with the Lebanese people.

05:45But clearly, clearly there are civilians being killed if you look at the scale of what's happening.

05:50Yeah, even if your bombs are very accurate, bombing a city, there are casualties.

06:01And the Israelis pay a lip service by saying that they've asked the people to evacuate and

06:08they've done their bit. But yes, there are casualties I can see in Beirut,

06:14and there will be more probably tonight.

06:17Do you think that when Antony Blinken's present visit, possibly his final visit as Secretary

06:23of State is over, there will be any advance towards the kind of resolution that he is looking for?

06:30I doubt it. I doubt it. I think that it is time of war now. He puts pressure on Netanyahu to

06:42send food to northern Gaza to end the war in Lebanon and not to overdo it in Iran. That's

06:51what he's asking the Israelis to do. And you know, the envoy of Shane visited Beirut to talk about

07:01a diplomatic solution. But quite frankly, I know what the diplomatic solution will be. I can,

07:09you know, describe to you in details what it's going to be. But at the moment, it is time of war.

07:16And the diplomatic solution will probably have to wait.

07:21Aaron, the retaliation strike on Iran is inevitable. Do you have any sense of

07:26what shape, what form that might take?

07:30Yeah, I'm surprised that the Israeli airplanes are still parked because the Israeli way of

07:38doing things is hitting at once. And the fact that it's taking them so long surprises me.

07:46Now, they are going to strike and there are some delays. I think that the delays are because of

07:53American pressure, mainly American pressure on the Israelis not to overdo it, not to attack

07:59nuclear facilities and not to touch oil facilities. Hezbollah, and it is very interesting,

08:07a bombed or attacked or managed to send a drone which hit the house of the Israeli prime minister.

08:18And today, the prime minister blamed Iran for doing it, probably in order to justify what he

08:28wants to do in Iran, which probably to overdo it, something that Americans are not going to like.

08:33Indeed, that sense that anybody is within range, that sense that in spite of Israel's massive

08:43financial military backing coming from the United States, $3.3 billion at least each year,

08:48a further $8 billion was donated just a few weeks ago to help Israel's offences.

08:53Still, things are getting through and that strike very close to Netanyahu.

08:58Yeah, it is odd that on the one hand, the Americans support Israel with all these bombs

09:05and technologies and defence system. And on the other hand, they find it very difficult

09:11to control what the Israelis are doing to keep the lid on the port. So there is, you know,

09:21these things just move in different directions. They supply the Israelis with the bombs to

09:27do that, but the Israelis wouldn't listen to them too much.

09:32Aaron Bregman, thank you for joining us and thank you for sharing your analysis with us.

09:35We covered a lot of ground and we appreciate your patience with us in taking those questions,

09:39because I know you were here to talk about, in one sense, the financial aspect,

09:44but clearly your knowledge was very valuable to us in terms of the broader aspects

09:48of the conflict too. So thank you for bearing with us there. That's Aaron Bregman,

09:51Senior Teaching Fellow at the Department of War at King's College in London. Thank you

09:55for joining us here on France 24. We appreciate it. Thank you, Mark.

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