They thought it was.
First of all, interesting that the prime Minister finally gave an interview to an
Israeli channel. So far, it's been the realm of
international media. So that's important to note.
But what did he say on our. As I said, Jomana is quite curious,
choice for him to wait for nine months to give an interview to the national
media outlet. That's a lot about the interview itself.
And I think the highlight of the interview does a great job of explaining
the reasoning behind that. As you said, the main highlight of the
view that Netanyahu gave yesterday was the fact that he said major operations
in Gaza will come to an end very soon. Now, to put things into context, he was
answering a question, direct question about whether or not the fighting would
come to an end in a month, which is something that the Israeli question that
the Israeli public has been busy discussing some time now.
And his response seemed to be, in a way, noncommittal, maybe, but didn't go too
far off from that mark either. He said Very soon it will be it will be
over. Another highlight of the interview, as
you said, was the fact that was the fact that he, for the first time rejected the
kind of cease fire deal backed by the U.S.
and would bring to Gaza hypothetically. And but if the major operations will end
in a month or so, frankly, that question probably isn't that interesting anymore.
But we can come back to that later and talk about what this might mean in terms
of the rift between the U.S. and Israel.
But yeah, the main the main highlight was the fact that he talked about major
operations and whether or not they will come to an end very soon and has a lot
of implications for the wider Middle East because the end of major operations
will obviously mean more resources to the north of the country, to the border
with Syria, where a lot of been engaged in skirmishes since the
war began. Honor.
I do want to pick up on those comments because it is very significant.
And the fact that he said that the next step for the military would be for
Israel to redeploy some forces to the north, where, as we know, tensions have
been increasing with Hezbollah. What are the latest developments over
there from the weekend's. Let's go through this step by step, as
you said. What is the new phase in the Gaza war
might mean? That means withdrawal of some Israeli
forces, leaving it paving the way to special operations into Gaza, which
might be good news with Gaza and definitely result in the more resources
being allocated to the border with Syria, to the border with Lebanon where
Hezbollah is located. And that would definitely result the
increasing likelihood of a full blown war with Iran backed militants,
which will most likely be more deadly and possibly prolonged and wider in
scope than anything else we have seen so far.
And why is this so important for the wider region?
Unlike Hamas, Hezbollah is in fact, a militant group that is.
Unlike any other group in the region, has tens of thousands of fighters as
spouses of missiles and rockets and arsenal believed to be still.
And just over the past five days, both Hezbollah and other Iran backed groups
in the region have said openly that tens, if not tens of thousands of
members of different militia backed by Iran in the region would join Hezbollah
in the event of an open war between Israel, Israel and Hezbollah, which
would increase the stakes dramatically in case of such a war.
