Lebanon is facing deadliest period 'in a generation' according to the UN
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00:00For more, we can speak to Yossi Mechelberg in London.
00:02He's an associate fellow at the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House.
00:06Hello to you and thank you for speaking to Paris Direct this Friday.
00:10Just to bring you up to speed in the past few minutes, we've had a couple
00:13alerts come into the newsroom, a Yemeni Houthi rebel saying they fired
00:17a ballistic missile towards Tel Aviv and a drone towards Ashkelon
00:20and that they will not stop until Israel attacks on Gaza and Lebanon are over.
00:26How close are we to this situation unraveling?
00:56And I think which we see everyone that delivers a speech in the U.N.
01:19General Assembly trying to push to a diplomatic solution, the question
01:24is, they're ready to lean on the sides involved to advance not only in
01:28Lebanon and a ceasefire agreement, but first and foremost, in Gaza.
01:34And Netanyahu expected to speak in just under two hours' time at the U.N.
01:37General Assembly. He's already dismissed the recent proposal for a ceasefire.
01:42If there are going to be diplomatic negotiations, how does one change his mind?
01:47Well, this has become, you know, one of the major obstacles over the last few
01:51months. And we get one minute, we get some rumors about Netanyahu agrees to an
01:58American deal and then involved with France as well on reaching a ceasefire in
02:04Lebanon for a few weeks to allow actually addressing how to implement
02:09Resolution 1701.
02:11And by the time he lands in New York, he reverses this.
02:16It's happened time and again when it came to ceasefire in Gaza.
02:21Since February, March, there is a real issue there.
02:25And this is again for countries like the United States, other from the European
02:29Union, to address and have frank conversation with Netanyahu and his government
02:34because we see we are nearly a year since this war started and we don't see it
02:41any, we are not near to a ceasefire and see the hostages coming, coming back home
02:47and humanitarian aid entering into into Gaza and starting actually the rebuilding
02:53of Gaza and looking into an original arrangement.
02:58We should stop this, this occurrences and the fear of original war.
03:03We are in a very perilous time in the region.
03:07And if you were to project, what are the long term, short term or long term
03:10consequences for Lebanon amid this escalation?
03:14I mean, obviously, Israel is hitting and hitting out.
03:17It's for years actually warned that this is going to be the case if Hezbollah
03:23will keep firing.
03:25I think let's not underestimate the danger that comes from Hezbollah and by the
03:30fact that it's sponsored and supported by Iran and the fact that 60,000 of Israeli
03:37citizens that normally live in the north of the country can't live there and just
03:43visited there a week ago.
03:46This is unsustainable for Israel.
03:48But the question, if it were to continue, the only only routes that the current
03:54Israeli government knows is bombardment and killing many, many, not necessarily
04:00combatants on the other side, but also civilians, because this might make the
04:04situation even worse.
04:06Or there is also a political horizon and fight for diplomatic rule.
04:10Right now, it doesn't look like the case.
04:13Yeah. And you mentioned how Iran's a backer of Hezbollah.
04:16If we were to get closer towards a ceasefire, are we sure that Iran or its
04:22proxy Hezbollah or the Houthis would be on the same page in terms of respecting a
04:27potential ceasefire?
04:30I think the likelihood is very high that if Israel reaches an agreement with Hamas
04:36in Gaza, it will follow also agreement with Hezbollah and will calm the situation
04:42down. I think Iran is no interest right now in a in a in a regional war.
04:48It doesn't serve its interest.
04:50And we have actually more conciliatory words from the Iranian president in the
04:54General Assembly.
04:56The fear is more of a miscalculated escalation.
04:59Things go wrong because of the scale and the nature of the hostilities right now.
05:06But rationally speaking, no one has interest to escalate it beyond what it is
05:12because they can't gain politically out of it.
05:15Yossi, thank you very much.
05:16Chet Hormats is Yossi Mechelberg speaking to us from London.