 Israel's assassination of a senior Hamas leader in Beirut has further raised tensions in the region. What is the possible impact? Ties between North Korea and South Korea seem to be worsening. What is the reason? This is the daily debrief. These are your stories for the day. And before we go any further, if you're watching this on YouTube, please hit the subscribe button. On Tuesday, an Israeli drone attack in Beirut killed Saleh Hararuri, the deputy leader of Hamas, tightening the risk of the war escalating in the region. The act was harshly condemned by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who called it a major dangerous crime about which we cannot remain silent. He also referred to it as flagrant Israeli aggression. Now Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire on a number of occasions since October 7th. But this attack in Beirut is once again in violation of Lebanon's sovereignty and might lead to a huge spike in tensions in the region. We go to Abdul Firmour. Abdul, thank you so much for joining us. Quite a few eventful days in the region as a whole, starting with, of course, the attack on the Hamas leader in Beirut. Could you take us through what has happened before we go into the response by Hassan Nasrallah? Well, on Tuesday, there were a couple of Israeli drones which basically flew over Beirut, Lebanon's capital and exploded on a gathering which basically killed seven people, including one of the top leaders of Hamas. And since then, there has been kind of, you can say, increased fear that there will be a greater regional escalation because this is one, a violation of the Lebanese sovereignty Israel has so far only attacked till the southern Lebanon, claiming that this is basically Hezbollah has been targeting their northern borders and therefore it is retaliating and so on and so forth. But this is like for the first time it attacked capital Beirut and that basically is one reason which basically has invited global concerns about kind of a legitimate right of Lebanese and Hezbollah to retaliate the Israeli aggression. That is what, of course, on Wednesday, Hassan Nasrallah while delivering a speech on the assassination of Qasim Soleimani four years back, basically said that, referred to that assassination and claimed that Hezbollah will not be silent on these kind of repeated violations of Lebanese sovereignty and kind of attempts to challenge Hezbollah's positions inside Lebanon and therefore that has also led to speculations of a greater retaliation from Hezbollah. Meanwhile, of course, Nasrallah also talked about how basically the Israel has been trying to drag Lebanon into the war which it is raising against the Palestinians in Gaza and if it continues to do so, the war which Hezbollah will wage will be a limitless war and it will be very costly for the Israelis. So this is one thing, of course, apart from amidst all these speculations of greater escalation, basically Israel has not even become any less careful about provoking Hezbollah. In fact, there were attacks on Wednesday and early morning Thursday which basically led to the killing of at least, there are different reports but according to one report for Hezbollah soldiers and destruction of much civilian property in different parts of southern Lebanon. So it seems when at the one time and on one side US is saying that there should be a constraint, there should be no reason escalation and in fact that it has deployed one of its, Biden has deployed one of his envoys into the region and expecting that he will be able to pacify the, this, you can say, heat which was generated after Israeli assassination of the Hamas commander but at the same time Israel has not been kind of, basically has not stopped attacking Hezbollah targets and the people in southern Lebanon. Right, Abdul Qudi, also maybe take us to what is happening in Gaza right now, the offensive of course continuing, no signs of a ceasefire. Well, just to kind of add to what I was saying earlier, in fact, when we talk about regional escalation, we should remember that Hezbollah is only one part of it. In fact, today there are the reports coming, sorry, on Thursday afternoon there was a report that Israeli, sorry, US strike has killed one of the commanders of PMF in Baghdad which basically is another, so US, which basically is claiming that it wants to work for kind of reducing the heat which was created due to the Israeli aggression both inside Gaza and in Lebanon is basically itself carrying out similar kind of attacks which, so one is confused what is the objective of US is. Okay, as far as the situation in Gaza is concerned, of course, the Israeli attacks continue, hundreds of more people in fact have died in last 24 hours. There are reports coming that one of the humanitarian agencies, the Red Crescent headquarters has been again attacked and at least one health worker has been killed. There are also reports of various casualties coming from that attack. Apart from that, there is a ground offensive, intensive ground offensive which continues in Khan Yunis which basically leads to further displacement of Palestinians. And of course, the humanitarian situation is becoming worse and worse and amidst all of this there are two specific statements which need to be noted here. One of course is the statement, sorry, and report coming that some of the Israeli legislatures are trying to kind of pass a kind of lobby for discontinuation of the UNRWA funding and UNRWA work which basically is, you can say UNRWA is the base of the humanitarian program which is running inside Gaza at the moment and if that stops, it would mean that there is a complete collapse of whatever remaining science of humanitarian work going on in that territory. Apart from that, there were statements made by Israeli ministers talking about forceful expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza in the last couple of days which basically had led to a greater kind of fear among the global community, among the Palestinians and also among the regional players. In fact, some of them have reacted very strongly saying that such talks basically does not give any hope and it basically leads to complete establishment of the fact that Israel has no other objective inside Gaza but to completely ethnically clean that territory and to kind of build more settlements there and kind of create much more kind of delay the peace in the region forever. Right Abdul, thank you so much for that update. The recent call by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to change the way his country deals with South Korea is yet another sign of rising tensions in that region as well. Now just a few years ago peace seemed on the horizon in the Korean Peninsula but a change of government in South Korea reversed these gains and today relations are steadily deteriorating, something that suits the geopolitical interests of the U.S. We go to Anish to understand what is happening there. Anish, thank you so much for joining us. So interesting and maybe even alarming developments in the Korean Peninsula. North Korea taking a very particular stand about how it views reunification coming in. Of course, there is a larger context to this coming after many months of very aggressive position taken by South Korea. So take us through what is happening right now. So right now what we are looking at is a situation where North Korea has probably set aside the whole reunification policy that was pretty much part of its very fundamental policy of how it deals with inter-Korean relationship and this is not something that only North Korea has. Both South and North has the policy of reunification as the ultimate aim for any kind of relations that are being set between the two Koreas. Now this removal of references from state media outlets from government information websites and everything clearly shows that there has been a very significant change in position under the government of Kim Jong-un and the leadership of Kim Jong-un actually and this comes just basically a couple of days after or four or five days after Kim Jong-un made a statement saying that reconciliation and or even reunification is next to impossible right now under current circumstances and this we have to wait and see how far this is going to go because one of the guidelines in that sense would be the fact that the North Korean government starts dealing with South Korea through its foreign ministry and that would be a significant development if you haven't reached that stage but if it goes that far then definitely we're looking at North Korea treating South Korea as an enemy state at the very best actually or just giving up the entirety of reunification as an ultimate goal eventually but in this current scenario this is quite alarming alarming primarily because even if it's not reunification keeping reunification as the ultimate goal meant that there was always hope for talks for negotiations for the peace process to come back in and the fact that it has completely derailed under the current government of Yoon Seok-yul who has very clearly stated his opposition to not just the North Korean government but also any kind of attempt to reconcile with the government or with the North itself and it has made no effort whatsoever to actually talk to the North whenever tensions were high and has created situations where including expanding military drills joint military drills with the US and trying to rope in Japan into the entire mix clearly just aggravated the situation to the point where we are right now and this because at its basics the the Korean peninsula is technically an act of war zone there are there's an armistice that's truce but the Korean war never ended technically speaking so the fact that it could now be triggered like the danger of triggering back again to an active war zone would become is an imminent problem might be something that we are looking at the horizon and definitely alarming because a couple of years ago we were already talking about peace you know peace processes and you know probably hope of a sustained peace process that can actually last much longer than a couple of years or a couple of statements and that was actually going to be my next question because it seems a long time ago but it was just about five years ago so I believe that you know it looked really the possibilities for peace looked really really high in fact one of the few things that Donald Trump one of the few positive legacies of Trump was actually what happened in that region and now we are at the exact other end of the spectrum yes in a way I mean like I wouldn't give Donald Trump much credit because in a way it was pretty much the Moon Jae in government administration in South Korea which actually led to this entire process and in 2018 we had the parliament journal declaration which actually you know called for an end of the Korean war which was the first time that both the Koreas actually called for something like that but one of the parties of the war includes the United States and it was while there were multiple negotiations and talks that have happened between Kim and Trump but it never really materialized into anything because obviously US domestic concerns often push the governments into taking more of war hawkish stand and you have Trump you know kind of jeopardizing the entire process even while more Jane was the president it was only further aggravated under you so pure and obviously Biden continued that and this situation is something that you know you can actually just see how you know weak the entire process eventually how weakened the entire process was eventually brought to to the point where we are now looking at you know probable war in you know a couple of years down the line if things do not really see you know or turn to the better very immediately and that that that is something that is where that should concern everybody because East Asia as I keep saying and we have always kept insisting has always been free of you know armed conflict for more than half a century now and if it goes back to that situation it is going to be a big bigger disaster for the world because we are looking at technological giants economic giants in the region who actually produce most of the stuff for pretty much all of the world and if they are being dragged into an armed conflict because of you know very stupid policies over time we are looking at a problem that everybody should be very very concerned about and Anish on that worrying note we'll have to leave you and come back to you for further updates later and that's all we have in today's debrief we'll be back with another episode tomorrow in the meanwhile do 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