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00:00Dominique Toncan, General, a former head of the French military mission to the United
00:06Nations.
00:07Thank you for joining us.
00:08Good afternoon.
00:09Good afternoon.
00:10Now, you've been, you've led French missions, French military missions in conflict zones
00:17in the past.
00:18How does the situation now compare to the previous war between Hezbollah and Israel
00:24back in 2006?
00:27The big difference is that in 2006, Israeli defense forces invaded the south of Lebanon.
00:36And after 33 days of war, they wanted to withdraw after having lost 200 soldiers.
00:46Currently, Israel is attacking by the air.
00:50The supremacy of Israel in the air of Lebanon is of no questions.
00:56And so currently, they are destroying everything they want to destroy from the Hezbollah system,
01:05starting with the pages and the talkie-walkie.
01:11In fact, they destroy the head of the military branch.
01:14Yesterday, they decided to destroy the head of Hezbollah, meaning the political master
01:22of Hezbollah.
01:24That seems that they don't want to have any discussion with Hezbollah, because obviously
01:29they can't discuss with no one now.
01:31And so they want to pursue their offensive in south Lebanon and in south Beirut.
01:40The only question is that will they want to go in on the ground in south Lebanon like
01:46in 2006, which is of major difficulty.
01:51We know that it is something which could be costly for the Israeli forces.
01:57General Tranquil, do you think that the way that Israel has behaved in the last few days
02:07in its approach to trying to knock Hezbollah out of any possibility of launching further
02:13attacks against Israel is an alternative for the Israeli government to sending in troops
02:20on the ground, in the knowledge that in 1982 and then again in 2006, on both occasions
02:27that didn't work out.
02:29And it's a much safer bet for Israel to try to hit Hezbollah directly than to send ground
02:35troops in, which might end up being a much more complicated operation and also cause
02:41more negative feedback against the Israeli government.
02:44Certainly, I think it's a better alternative.
02:47The only question we've got is that the assessment that the Israeli government will make of the
02:53destruction of Hezbollah, will it decide that, say, 85 percent of Hezbollah is destroyed,
03:01so it's sufficient and we'll stop there, or will the Israeli government think that he
03:09is not going as far as he wants and he has to go on the ground?
03:13I think it would be a very dangerous position for him to go on the ground.
03:18And the current operation is far better for Israel.
03:22How long do you think an offensive like this one, where we've seen the pages exploding
03:29just over a week ago, the walkie-talkie systems, the targeted assassinations of Hezbollah leaders
03:34and now the targeted assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, how much preparation has gone into
03:40this and over how long a period would Israel have to prepare something like this for it
03:45to take effect?
03:46Well, I think it has been prepared for years.
03:50The information was gathered for years, knowing where is the HQ, where are the leaders, etc., etc.
04:00Everything accelerates after the 7th of October last year and I think that for the pages,
04:06for example, it's an operation which has been launched perhaps several years ago in
04:12order to build company, you know, screening and the fact that everything was hidden.
04:21So it can take years to mount something like that.
04:25Sometimes you use it, sometimes you don't use it.
04:28And when you've got the proper intelligence at the last minute, you can use it.
04:32It's exactly what they did in the last week.
04:35So this basically shows that over the years, Israel has managed to infiltrate Hezbollah
04:42to obtain information that normally it would not be able to obtain, to be able to put that
04:46information together, to be able to mount an attack like this.
04:49Oh yes, of course.
04:52The infiltration of Hezbollah and even in the Iran defence structure, Mossad is probably
05:00very well infiltrated and gathering the information will provide the possibility to build a plan
05:08like the plan which is currently used by Israel.
05:12Now we've had over the last few days diplomatic efforts to try to shore up a ceasefire deal
05:18with Hezbollah, the proposition by the United States, by the EU, by 10 other countries,
05:24including France, the UK, saying there should be a three-week break in the fighting to move
05:28towards a diplomatic solution.
05:30You've worked a lot in both the United Nations, in NATO, as a commander in Lebanon itself.
05:37What do you think the international community is actually thinking right now when it comes
05:40to those organisations that are heavily criticised for their lack of ability to shore in Israel,
05:45to draw them in, to find some kind of way out of this on the diplomatic front?
05:50I think that the big difficulty is that currently you can't talk with anyone in Hezbollah.
05:57You can't talk to anyone in Lebanon.
06:00As you know, there is no government in Lebanon for two years now.
06:03So ceasefire is fine.
06:06That will mean that only Israel will decide to have a ceasefire.
06:11And in front of Israel, you've got no one.
06:13So it's very difficult currently to talk about a diplomatic issue when you've got no one
06:19in front of you.
06:21One final question about the UN Resolution 1701, which dates from 2006, the last time
06:28there was a major conflict.
06:30This was supposed to push Hezbollah back to the Litani River to withdraw any Israeli troops
06:37that were based in southern Lebanon, to let UN forces take control of that as a peacekeeping
06:42region.
06:43A couple of things here.
06:45The first one is that that plan has never been properly instigated.
06:50And the second thing is, is that a sign that there is either a failure of international
06:56diplomacy or a lack of willingness on the side of the international community to go
07:01ahead and get that plan off the ground.
07:04Does that have any implication that now we should be encouraged by the idea that that
07:10plan could eventually take effect?
07:12I think the problem of this resolution, I was in New York at that time, so I follow
07:17very closely this resolution, is that it was asked by Israel in order for Israel to withdraw
07:24from the south of Lebanon.
07:26But in order to have this resolution voted, you have the agreement also on Lebanon.
07:34At that time, there was a government in Lebanon.
07:37And this resolution was voted, but not under Chapter 7, meaning that the UNIFIL, the 14,000,
07:48troops were deployed in south Lebanon at that time, were not able to push Hezbollah
07:55outside this area without the agreement of the Lebanese army.
08:00And the problem is that the Lebanese army never wanted really to push Hezbollah outside.
08:07So if you want to increase the power of this UNIFIL, you need to put that under Chapter
08:147, which could be possible because currently there is no real government in Lebanon who
08:19can oppose that.
08:20But that will mean that the UNIFIL will be able to fight with the Lebanese army against
08:28Hezbollah.
08:29And I don't think that the country providing the soldier want to see their soldier fighting
08:36in south Lebanon.
08:38That means, in fact, that UNIFIL will not be efficient to do that job.
08:47General Dominique Honkan, thank you so much for your insight.