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00:00bring in David Wood, he's a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group.
00:05David, Israel says that it doesn't want a wider regional conflict,
00:08but how high is the risk that this could spiral out of control now?
00:14So it's very hard to overstate the impact of the announcement that Hassan Nasrallah
00:21has been killed today. He was clearly the towering figure of Lebanese politics for
00:26the best part of three decades. And it's created a power vacuum, not just inside Hezbollah,
00:32but also raises questions on the domestic scene. To answer your question specifically about
00:37Israel's plans, well, there are different options. One could be that not only has Israel
00:43successfully assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, but has also assassinated many of Hezbollah's top
00:50military leadership. So based on this, as well as airstrikes, which Israel claims have
00:56been increasingly taking out Hezbollah weapons and infrastructure, Israel might conclude that
01:02it has degraded the military threat posed by Hezbollah to Israel to enough of an extent,
01:07and now push for a diplomatic or political settlement. Alternatively, what Israel might
01:12want to do is to continue to degrade Hezbollah personnel and infrastructure. The problem there,
01:18of course, is that it might not be possible to do all of that from the air, which would involve
01:22a ground invasion, which could come from the perspective of Israel at a very great cost and
01:27might actually swing the pendulum back towards Hezbollah. So in light of those options, it would
01:31seem that the most sensible course ahead would be to immediately push for a political settlement
01:37and end the dire humanitarian situation in Lebanon. And how much damage has Hezbollah
01:41likely suffered in recent days? It's undeniable that Hezbollah has suffered
01:48lots of damage militarily, and not just in terms of the assassination of much of its senior military
01:55leadership, but also in the attacks on communications devices, which wounded many
02:00other members of Hezbollah. And of course, there's also the political impact of this enormous level
02:07of death, wounding and displacement from civilian communities, which are aligned with Hezbollah. So
02:12for all of these reasons, in different ways, Hezbollah has suffered a great amount of damage.
02:17At the same time, we cannot conclude that Hezbollah is finished as an entity. And indeed,
02:24it is clear that Hezbollah has not lost all military capacity. It has continued to fire
02:29rockets and missiles into northern Israel today. And it remains to be seen what Hezbollah's next
02:34move will be. Indeed, I mean, with Nasrallah gone, is the militant group still capable of
02:40regrouping and putting its military capabilities together fairly quickly?
02:47We need to remember that Hezbollah is an institution that prides itself on processes and
02:52having succession plans in place. So it will not take Hezbollah very long at all, for example,
02:58to appoint a replacement for Hassan Nasrallah. Equally, at all levels of the organization,
03:05there will be replacements in place who are capable of continuing with military operations.
03:10However, the question becomes, in terms of the capacity, particularly in relations to weapons
03:16and infrastructure, how much of that has actually been taken out by Israel's increasingly intense
03:21operations in Lebanon? It may simply be that for now, Hezbollah is not in a position to launch
03:27higher-grade missiles, such as precision-guided missiles, which would create much havoc and
03:34destruction in Israel. At this point, we simply don't know. Before this latest airstrike, a barrage
03:40of airstrikes, Hezbollah was a powerful force. As a military, it was even bigger than Lebanon's
03:49regular army, wasn't it? So that's definitely been the dynamic in the country for decades now,
03:56which is that Hezbollah has run effectively a parallel military operation, and one that
04:03operates outside the state, but is more powerful than Lebanon's national army.
04:07But this raises a concern. Now that there's a perception that Hezbollah has grown weaker,
04:13there may be a temptation amongst domestic rivals of Hezbollah to seize upon this opportunity to try
04:20to dislodge Hezbollah, or to acquire some of the power that has been left in a vacuum by these
04:25recent attacks on Hezbollah. This would be an incredibly dangerous situation, because Hezbollah,
04:30while undoubtedly weakened in the past weeks and months, has not been bowed. And it is very
04:36unlikely that Hezbollah would take such aggressive action towards it lying down.
04:40Could a civil war then be on the horizon?
04:45I think it's, at this stage, not the most likely possibility, but it's one that cannot be
04:50discounted. And again, this is why the first priority must be to end the conflict between
04:57Israel and Hezbollah through a negotiated settlement. Equally, members of the international
05:01community must encourage all sides domestically in Lebanon to ensure calm, and that there's an
05:06orderly transition towards ending the conflict, electing a president, and dealing with the
05:11economic crisis, rather than making dramatic power plays, which could have horrific consequences for
05:17the country. Now, Iran's supreme leader has also called for a strong response to this. What is
05:23Iran likely to do next? So what we know about Iran, and we've known from the outset of this
05:31conflict, is that Iran does not want to be drawn into a regional war. And for that reason, throughout
05:38the conflict, Iran has reportedly been advising Hezbollah to exercise restraint. Now, I don't think
05:45that those calls will necessarily have changed. On the other hand, Iran might be starting to
05:50perceive that Hezbollah, which has been suffering incremental losses for months now, is now starting
05:57to face an existential threat, and therefore might feel that it does need to intervene directly,
06:02which again, is another reason that now the violence must cease, a new security arrangement
06:07found at the Lebanese-Israeli border, rather than escalating the conflict further.
06:11What's the significance of a senior Revolutionary Guard official being killed alongside Nasrallah
06:18on Friday? It's serious, but on the other hand, we know that Iran is a very cautious operator.
06:25And so, for example, there were global headlines when the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard,
06:30Qasem Soleimani, was assassinated in January 2020. Now, Iran still has not officially retaliated
06:37for that, despite asserting that it will do at some point. So, for that reason, I don't think
06:43that because this commander was also there, that we should necessarily expect that event in itself
06:48to trigger a massive direct response from Iran directed against Israel.
06:52David Wood, Senior Analyst at the International Crisis Group,
06:56thank you so much for your insight. Thank you very much.