 It's rocket fire now, so far as we'll discuss in the studio here. It doesn't quite fit their profile if it has the last strike here. We are in the studio with our defense correspondent, Jonathan Regev, and our Middle East correspondent, Arielle Osiron. Right now though, before we speak to you too, we have the honor of speaking to a resident from Kira Chmona right now, coming to us here. First of all, thank you for being with us. I appreciate your time on our program here. Shira Gerge, I believe. I hope I get the name right. A resident of Kira Chmona, Northern Israel. If you could describe what the last hour was like for you and the other residents of the town. What happened? Yeah, my name is Shira Gergin. I actually lived in Kira Chmona for the last six years, and it was very quiet here. And an hour ago, something like that, suddenly it was the alarm. And we thought it's just something that the army do or some mistake. And suddenly it was bombing twice. My girls will start crying and everybody's got scared. There's no shelters around and everything's closed. So they get really scared and they didn't know what to do. And after a while, we hear that Lebanon should fires on us. Such an important aspect you bring up there, the plight of yourself, your family, other residents up there, not having shelter immediately available. Obviously, this is an area that dealt with rock and fire for many years, but not recently now. And there's been a lot of criticism on the fact that the infrastructure, it's not so installed up there. You don't have shelters nearby to run to? The shelters are not really nearby and they're all closed because the municipality take care of them and they're closed, usually in during days. And just now they're going to open. Bit of a problem with the connection there. Clearly though, eye-opening. Just even one sentiment from your share, I believe, maybe we have you back here. But yeah, obviously that's a frightening issue for the residents up there. The fact that this kind of thing can happen now, seemingly at any time. It is because all the kids are home and everybody's scared. The parents are at work and all the kids are home. So they're scared being alone. And they don't really know what to do in these kind of positions. Because they are not ready to accept things. They born in quiet years. They didn't born when it was war here. See you, Gigi. Thanks for being with us, a bit of a spotty connection there from Kudashmona. But you highlight something so important that this is essentially a terror attack on the town of Kudashmona. These are rockets fired at civilian population centers. And you described that terror that your own children and so many others going through right now in that town in the last hour here being shocked out of the days quiet here as a quiet summer day in the north here by the least warning sirens that we have over our heads here in this country and the Iron Dome as well doing its job here. We're going to bring that discussion now into the studio here. Jonathan Reger, our defense correspondent with us at first. Jonathan, we're looking here. There's live footage here of still that fire burning up there. There's a dry, hot conditions obviously in the month of August here right now in Israel, lending to this fire. But from what we can tell, what's the best that we can tell happened in the last hour exactly? The assessment of the Israeli security establishment, same as what we spoke here in the studio about 30 minutes ago, is that these are Palestinian factions who shot these rockets, not Hizballah itself. Hizballah of course has the ability to shoot much more than that. Therefore, the assessment is that we're not going into a deeper escalation for the moment. These are Palestinian factions that shot the rockets and Israel fired back. We don't know yet if we can say that this incident is over, but this is the initial assessment here. Having said that, any faction, be it Palestinian or anyone else that gets so close to the Israeli border, firing rockets into Israel has to do it at least with the green light or the acceptance or the ice being closed by Hizballah. Anything happening in that area needs the consent of Hizballah, meaning it wasn't perhaps Hizballah, the one that shot, but it is Hizballah, the one that allowed this to happen, and the dilemma now facing the Israeli establishment is how exactly to react. You just shoot back towards Lebanon, same as is done on the Gaza border, or perhaps bring some kind of response towards Hizballah, towards the Lebanese government. The dilemma here is, of course, that when you go into something like that, there's always the danger of bringing a greater escalation. This is what the Israeli decision makers will now have to debate, but the assessment is that it's not Hizballah itself that fired, but other Palestinian factions within Lebanon. Now, as we say within Lebanon here, and Ariel Sidran, our Middle East correspondent in the studio here, we spent much of the morning talking about what's going on in Lebanon. Certainly today, one year since the Bay report bombing and the country in crisis, really from corner to corner here, how in your vision, your knowledge of the region, the border area, how does this, an incident like this, why is it happening today? How does this fit in with the greater chaos playing out north of the border from us? Well, on the one hand, I would say that as you mentioned today is the one-year anniversary to that devastating port blast that could make this date significant to try and use this big date when they know that all the eyes of the world are set on Lebanon to kind of use that to get a larger effect. Now, this isn't very rare. I mean, as you mentioned for the past 10 years, there haven't been too many of these events, but just two weeks ago, there was a similar event. It just, it didn't happen in daytime. It happened in the middle of the night, so we didn't break live. But also then, there were two rockets fired into the northern part of Israel, a little west, a little more west from Kiryat Shmona, where today's rockets were fired on. But, and also then, the Israeli military establishment assessment was that it was Palestinian factions. According to the Hezbollah-run El-Manar TV station, they're reporting now that Israel retaliated with six shells, artillery shells, fired to the El-Khiyam area, which is on the other side of the border from Kiryat Shmona. That's the Lebanese aspect, but since the assessment is that these are Palestinian factions, I wouldn't disconnect this from what's the tensions that's going on between Israel and Hamas surrounding Gaza, surrounding the aid, surrounding the Qatari money that Hamas deeply is waiting to get, you know, for it to already enter. They're not getting their way. Recent reports on where the Qatari aid for Gaza stands is that the Qatari government has reached an agreement, a memorandum with the Palestinian Authority, that the money, excuse me, would enter the Gaza Strip through the PA and not through Hamas. This is a big blow to Hamas and with those factors at play. But you mentioned this area just over the hill, and we have less than a minute left here, but that's an area completely controlled by Hezbollah. Nobody's firing rockets off from there, certainly not a Palestinian group without Hezbollah. Standing in the background in all likelihood here is potentially a distraction from the stories from the events in Lebanon today, mentioned in one year since the port bombing. Look, Hezbollah is the most powerful armed group in Lebanon, even more than the official military. And Israel has claimed that they will see any flare-up coming from the Lebanese border. Any flare-up like that, they'll see the Lebanese government responsible, the Lebanese state, and they'll retaliate accordingly. So, you know, at times like this when the crisis in Lebanon is so hard, I don't think Hezbollah wants to drag the country into a round of escalation of fighting with Israel. It's a cut for now. We are going to a short break. We'll discuss this much more again. The breaking news, one rocket hit out of southern Lebanon outside Qashemona. We'll be right back with more. Organism that pulsates through millennia. Listen to it. Smell it. Taste it. Experience the Holy Land like never before. Holy Land uncovered every Sunday only on I-24 News. We're on the inside of political and religious passions in Jerusalem, breaking down the financial trends, shaping the global economy, giving you key contacts, not just headlines, with the stories from Israel that touch the U.S. and those across the region with impact far beyond its borders. Hatch the rundown that the Middle East meets the world. News coverage coming to live from Tel Aviv right now at I-24 News as we're looking northward. The town of Qashemona, which in the last hour experienced with the towns around it, some red alert sirens going off here in the middle of the day, breaking the silence of a hot summer day here now with children at home from school. Two rockets now apparently hitting the ground in Israel here, fired from southern Lebanon. Three rockets apparently fired, one of those falling short in Lebanon. Two now making impact. You can see a lot of footage emerging from the area of Qashemona here showing the site of that impact here. This is coming to us from residents and other sources in the north there, dry hot conditions now triggering, lending to the ability of that rocket to start the fire seeing here. But for now, no significant injuries reported here. There are apparently four people being treated for shock from these areas against essentially a terror attack at noon in Qashemona with a rocket suddenly coming in from southern Lebanon, triggering sirens at least giving residents some seconds of warning before that rocket hits just outside the town this time. Of course, we'll keep analyzing the situation as it's developing. The IDF also reporting that they've responded with at least six artillery shells towards the source of that fire truly just over the hill in southern Lebanon. This is an area fully controlled by Hezbollah. But this as far as analysts are saying at this point does not likely fit the profile of a Hezbollah attack where we are joined by Rafael Urshami, former Senior Intelligence Officer of the IDF and Security Analyst. Thanks for being with us. Rafael, what does this look like to you today? It looks to me that it is true that Hezbollah controls southern Lebanon. It is true that Palestinian factions might be willing to shoot at Israel because of what's happening in Gaza and in Cherjara. All these things are true. But really, right now, there is such a chaos in Lebanon that is not even sure that Hezbollah has total control. There is a total chaos like there was in Syria at the beginning of the civil war where nobody is controlling anything anymore, not even the Lebanese army. And because of this, we are in a very, very dangerous, explosive situation. Each time a country is in such a disastrous position, it is very dangerous for the neighbors because sooner or later, this kind of chaos would slip towards, it would cross the border. And this is what is happening now. And the main question now is the response. What do we do? Because we do know that this is a minor incident, militarily speaking, but it's not minor politically speaking and strategically speaking. We have to decide now, and that's what the government and the Ministry of Defense are doing right now in the Keryah and discussing, is what kind of response this time we should give. Should it be the same as before or should it be different? I think they are going to decide different. I think they're going to go one way up into the reprisals. The message has to be very clear. The message has to be sent straight towards Lebanon and the Lebanese government because we always say that there is balance and control, but we hold responsible also the Lebanese government for anything that happens unable to solve it, unfortunately. Does that policy change at all given the chaos that you described in Lebanon? Does that affect Israel's law-standing policy not to go straight after the central government when this happens? Exactly. I was going to say that. Unfortunately, there is no government to speak to. I mean, we can send a message, but nobody's going to get it. And if they get it, they can't do anything. Same with Hezbollah. Hezbollah, in any case, is obeying the orders from Tehran, from Iran. Whether Iran will press the Hezbollah button right now, I doubt very much. They are not in a situation to go in a full-fledged war. Hezbollah is losing ground in Lebanon. They have to try to keep control. They're even dreaming of taking Lebanon into their own hands and to dominate Lebanon. That's their main aim now. I don't think Israel is their main target right now. But as I said, everything is explosive, volatile, dangerous. And here we have to keep our cool and be very firm and keep our power of discretion because things could get worse. Rafael, I brought this up a little while ago, but the UN does have a fairly robust force deployed along the border here. Are they involved when it comes to this type of situation at all? What are they doing? Are they part of de-escalating? Are they involved in the process of our response? Are they essentially bystanders still? The UNIFIL is completely useless, and sometimes it's even a hindrance. It's a problem for Tehran when we want to retaliate. We have these blue helmets there that are doing nothing, but they are in the way. Their mandate, even though it has been changed the last couple of years, is still an awkward mandate, a mandate that doesn't allow them to do anything really. They can observe, they can report, but most of the time they do fail to do that and they cannot act in any way. So much so that sometimes cells of the Hezbollah hide behind UN post, outpost, because we can't shoot at that. And they just use them as shelters, and we have to tell the UN that they have Hezbollah people behind their own camp. The bottom line is completely useless and even harmful presence of these UN ports. An expensive deployment for the UN as well. I think it's important point to highlight there. This is not a no man's land. The UN heavily deployed in between the two countries for whatever it remains worth. And Rafael, looking again at the situation in Lebanon, the chaos you've been describing here, you say Hezbollah has no interest in turning southward in this moment, but might they have an interest in at least distracting from the narrative, certainly around the one year of the Beirut port blast? Is this possibly a better headline for them right now today than everything else going on? They might only do that if they feel cornered or desperate. Right now their hopes are high. They think they can exploit the situation and the chaos in Lebanon. They already took into their hands a lot of the energy, the fuel, the money, the banks. They're actually really trying to conquer Lebanon and make it a new Iranian colony, just as Syria is today. That's their hope. I don't think that attacking Israel would help them in any way to achieve that goal. It might actually be the country. So I think that only if they feel really cornered and desperate, because on the other side, there are factions, the Sunnis and the Christian people are getting united, because the Lebanese do fear that their country will become a second Iran with the Ayatollah regime. They certainly don't want that. So it's far from certain that Hezbollah will prevail. What is far from certain is whether Lebanon will prevail. Will there be a country left after all this or will it look like Syria, a pile of ruins with a puppet government Assad controlling nothing just his own palace? Will Lebanon become that kind of a horrible place or will they manage to come out of it? The only regretful thing I would say is that we are trying to help. We are extending Israel. It is extending a hand, a helping hand. We want to help on a humanitarian basis, on an economic basis. Everything so far, unfortunately, nobody on the other side is taking that hand. And we've seen that since even one year ago during the day of the port blast, that hand left hanging by Israel out to try to help the situation. Interesting piece of analysis you put out there that essentially Hezbollah may not have the iron grip on these territories. We've felt they have had all these years here, given the chaos up there, looking at the different parties involved with the different ethnic groups and religions that have been in this broken down now power sharing agreement that was the state of Lebanon. What is the potential now for those other groups, the Christians, the Druze, to take on Hezbollah, to actually stop them? Is the situation right for another civil war or is Hezbollah still just too dominant? No, the situation is right for a civil war. You must remember that behind these names, Hezbollah and the Christians, you have clans, tribes, big families, Mansour, Jemayel, these families, they decide now. Now it's the game of alliance. Who is going to sign an alliance with whom? If the non-Shiai, non-Hezbollah people are going to unite in a coalition, then I do believe they are strong enough and they will have probably the support of the Lebanese army or at least the Lebanese army will stand still. They will be strong enough to take on the Hezbollah. So it's all a matter of alliances between them. They are strong enough. These are very powerful families, very powerful clans. They have a score to settle anyway with the Shiai people. They have vendettas going on. As I said, it's huge tribes. So I do think that we should be pessimistic as to the near future of the Lebanon with the civil war, but maybe optimistic in that sense that these civil wars might be the necessary coconut-shaking act that will change the situation that has been going on for years and years and years and is unacceptable with corrupt governments, with the Hezbollah doing what they want, where they want. This might be a game changer for this country if people unite against Hezbollah and see it as a common enemy. Thank you very much for all the analysis. We are jumping right now with Lebanese President Michel Ayoun, apparently speaking to his nation on the one-year anniversary of this big report blast. I made all the other economic devastation. Let's listen in. Assistance and support from the international community after the determining needs and priorities, notably badly needed humanitarian, social and health assistance. Assistance that guarantees the continuous provision of the vital basic services in emergency settings, especially in the health sector and in the maintenance of water and electricity infrastructures. Assistance that ensures the needs of our security and the Lebanese army and security forces. Furthermore, restoring, developing and fully re-operating the port of Beirut, the artery of the Lebanese economy is a pressing necessity and a top priority for us. And any international effort is welcome in his respect, ladies and gentlemen. For many months, the country has grown in political crises in which Lebanon, probably the details of cabinet formation prevail over the program, the government's rescue project. Today, we are in a new phase. I do hope that a government is formed, a government which is capable of implementing the required reforms, preparing for the upcoming parliamentary elections. And in parallel, building confidence with our international partners and reaching out to the international monetary fund. This is Lebanese President Michele Ioan addressing his country on the one-year anniversary of the devastating Beirut port blast. And this is all as well in the last hour after three rockets were fired from southern Lebanon into Israel. Here are two of them impacting, one starting a fire just outside Kira, Tshmona on the north here now. But in about the minute we have left here, still with our correspondent in the studio here, Arielle Siron, looking at Lebanon, inescapable to look at the situation, the lack of any international aid, just how disastrous is this and why is no help coming to Lebanon's way? Well, I think we saw a great example of that just earlier this week, the lawlessness in the streets. We have, as Rafael Ushami, our former guest just mentioned, there's different sectarian groups taking out their vigilantism in the streets. Now, why isn't there international aid coming to Lebanon? It's a very important question. Now, Michele Ioan, the president, he said very similar things called on the international community back in October after the port blast to send aid. But the international community is saying that until very important critical reforms are done in the Lebanese economy, there won't be any aid and these reforms aren't happening because there isn't a functioning government. So it's a vicious cycle. Arielle Siron and Jonathan Rege, thanks for being with us so far as we've been covering the breaking news, rockets impacting northern Israel here just one outside Kira, Tshmona. Thanks for joining us for now. We'll keep you updated. We look into security, intelligence and strategic affairs. Analysis of the major security issues right here in the Middle East and around the globe.