Israeli and Lebanese officials to meet in Washington
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 14 April 2026
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Israeli and Lebanese officials to meet to discuss Israel's campaign against the Iran-backed group Hezbollah. We report from southern Lebanon.
Also in the programme: a BBC investigation into Greek police recruiting mercenaries to push migrants back into Turkey; the rise and fall of the Chinese property developer who was once Asia's richest person but has now pleaded guilty to fraud; conservation success in Uganda where numbers of mountain gorillas are rising; and could small talk be good for you?
(IMAGE: Israeli soldiers stand among destroyed buildings in southern Lebanon, near the Israel-Lebanon border, as seen from the Israeli side of the border in northern Israel, April 14, 2026 / CREDIT: REUTERS/Florion Goga)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:09.1 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:12.9 | We're coming to you live from London. I'm Leila Nathu. |
| 0:15.6 | We will start the programme in Lebanon, where Israel's war against the Iran-backed group Hezbollah shows no sign of abating. |
| 0:22.7 | Israel says its campaign is not part of the two-week ceasefire agreed between the US in Iran |
| 0:27.5 | to allow for talks which failed to result in any agreement. |
| 0:31.1 | Meanwhile, though, Lebanon and Israel's ambassadors to Washington will sit down for discussions |
| 0:35.6 | of their own today in a rare face-to-face meeting |
| 0:38.4 | between representatives off the two sides. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is also expected |
| 0:44.1 | to be there, but the outlook is bleak. The Lebanese government is seeking a ceasefire. Israel says |
| 0:49.7 | it won't discuss one and Hezbollah says the talks shouldn't be happening at all. Since March, |
| 0:55.4 | more than 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the government there. |
| 0:59.6 | And more than a million people have fled their homes, particularly in the south of the country, |
| 1:04.2 | where Israel has sent in troops and says it intends to set up a long-term buffer zone. |
| 1:09.3 | Our Middle East correspondent Hugo Bershaga, |
| 1:11.4 | spent several days with emergency services |
| 1:13.4 | in the southern city of Nabatir. |
| 1:19.0 | Another day of war. |
| 1:23.6 | The Lebanese are desperate for it to stop. |
| 1:31.3 | The talks in the US, their main hope for a ceasefire. Here, there's no respite. |
| 1:34.3 | With emergency teams being constantly attacked, |
| 1:38.3 | every mission for these paramedics is risky. |
... |
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