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00:00Rawad, what's the latest now from Beirut?
00:03Now we just, we just heard from the deputy leader of Hezbollah, the deputy of Secretary
00:11General Hassan Nasrallah Sheikh Naeem Asim, he just addressed the supporters of Hezbollah
00:17and the rest of the Lebanese in a televised speech where he looked very tired.
00:22There was no backdrop like the usual speeches we saw before for Secretary General of Hezbollah
00:28Hassan Nasrallah.
00:29He mourned the death of Nasrallah as a great leader for the organization.
00:33However, what's important is that he mentioned that the organization, despite all this disarray,
00:38despite all the assassination of its commanders, including Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah,
00:43that the organization will continue its fight against Israel and that it is ready for any
00:48potential ground invasion if it happens in southern Lebanon.
00:53No call for a ceasefire whatsoever in that speech.
00:56No retreat from the earlier objectives of the war that Hassan Nasrallah himself had
01:01put forward on the table before his assassination.
01:04No explicit decoupling the conflict in Lebanon with the conflict in Gaza.
01:08And absolutely no chance for a ceasefire in his speech.
01:12He mentioned that this is going to be a long war, and he called on for his supporters to
01:17be patient and trust that the organization is still stable and can hold on this fight.
01:23And what is interesting is that shortly after his speech, we heard remarks from the caretaker,
01:28Prime Minister Najib Mikati, after his meeting with the Speaker of Parliament, Nabir Birri,
01:33who is possibly the ally of Hezbollah, yet he has great connections with the West and
01:39the Americans and Western powers.
01:42Mikati, after his meeting with the Speaker of the Parliament, delivered, on the contrary,
01:47the exact opposite of what the deputy of Nasrallah delivered in his speech.
01:53So Mikati just said moments ago that as soon as there is a ceasefire, the government is
02:00ready to send the army and deploy the army south of the Litani River.
02:05He also mentioned that the Speaker of Parliament, Nabir Birri, is ready to call for a ceasefire
02:10and that as soon as possible, parliament will be called to convene to elect a president
02:16for all of Lebanon and not any controversial figure or confrontational figure to any party.
02:22So we're seeing a dichotomy here.
02:23Hezbollah is saying one thing.
02:25It's saying that this war is ongoing, that it will be a long war, that it is ready to
02:29fight Israel.
02:30On the other hand, we're seeing the Speaker of Parliament, Nabir Birri, and the caretaker,
02:34Prime Minister Najib Mikati, calling for a ceasefire, saying they are ready to deploy
02:38the army south of the Litani River, and saying that they are ready to call for the parliament
02:44to elect a unified president for Lebanon in such a historical moment of time.
02:50And indeed, this is coming as the humanitarian situation in Lebanon is only getting worse.
02:55The health ministry has said more than 1,000 people have been killed, 6,000 wounded in
03:00the past two weeks, not to mention the close to a million people, the fifth of the population,
03:04who have been forced to flee.
03:06Indeed, in particular, the upper estimate is that one million people have evacuated
03:11southern Lebanon, part of the Bekaa Valley, as well as Beirut's southern suburbs.
03:17Over 120,000 of them are living currently in dire humanitarian conditions in evacuation
03:25centers, which were opened by the government, roughly around 750 evacuation centers were
03:31opened across different areas of the country, mostly in safer areas.
03:35Around 750 schools, as I mentioned before, are now evacuation centers, with the school
03:42year start has been fully, until things settle.
03:46So, it is a real humanitarian crisis, and it is unclear for how long the country can sustain it.
03:52Rawad, thank you for that.
03:53That's Rawad Taha reporting for us from Beirut.