Hello and welcome to Newshour from the BBC World Service coming live from London.

This is Owen Bennett Jones.

Now ever since the killings and kidnappings in Israel on October the 7th and the subsequent

conflict in Gaza there have been fears of regional escalation. Israel has faced

missile attacks by the Hutis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran itself,

but so far there's been a sense that no one really wants a full-blown international conflict.

Each time things have become more intense, they have stabilized again.

Is that what's going to happen this time?

In this latest round, the Israeli military says it launched a wave of preemptive strikes against Hezbollah targets across Lebanon to thwart a large-scale attack.

The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was determined to protect itself.

This morning we detected Hezbollah's preparations to attack Israel. The IDF has since been working vigorously

to thwart the threats. We are determined to do everything to protect Israel, return the

residents of the north safely to their homes and continue to

uphold a simple rule. Whoever hurts us we hurt him.

Well in response to the Israeli strike Hezbollah hit back. So what next? I'm joined now by the

BBC's Middle East Bureau Chief Joe Floto who's in Tel Aviv and journalist Jim

Muir who's in the Lebanese capital Beirut.

Joe, first of all, now Israel said this was preemptive.

Have they given any details of what they say Hezbollah was planning to do?

Not officially, but they have been briefing Israeli journalists and the story that they're

telling them and that's emerging today in Israel is that targets in the center of the country in Tel Aviv and nearby,

notably the administrative and the Mossad headquarters, that's the intelligence service

...