Welcome to Current Affairs. My name is Nathan Robinson. I'm the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs

Magazine. I am joined today by Mouin Rabani. He is non-resident fellow with the Center for Conflict

and Humanitarian Studies. He's also one of the leading commentators on Middle East in Politics and the Israel-Palestine

conflict.

Mawrbani, thank you so much for joining us on current affairs today.

Thank you very much, Nathan.

It's a pleasure to be with you and your audience.

Well, our audience may, if they have been reading US newspapers, seen headlines like

world braces for potential increase in Middle Eastern conflict.

They may have seen the high-profile assassinations recently carried out by Israel in Lebanon and Iran.

As of this recording, the status, according to US news, is that it is believed that there is going to be some kind of Iranian military response to the assassination that was carried out by Israel

recently. I want you to help us understand where things stand. The first thing I wanted to

ask you is, let's talk about these assassinations. Could you tell us what Israel's stated objective with carrying out these assassinations is and what its actual objective is?

Well, let's start with identifying those who were assassinated. In Lebanon last week, Israel launched an airstrike on the Lebanese capital, Beirut, that resulted in the assassination of Fouad Shokar, who was the senior military commander of the Lebanese militant movement, Hzbollah.

And Hasbullah has responded that although there have been Israeli-Lebanese

clashes since the 8th of October of last year, these have taken place within what are called

rules of engagement. Those rules of engagement have been shifting over time,

but Hasbalah stated that because this attack took place against the Lebanese capital, Beirut,

because it took place in a residential area in which civilians were killed and wounded,

and because it deliberately targeted one of the most

senior leaders of the Hasbullah movement, it violated those very deep red lines and that Hasbullah will

therefore respond not indirectly, not symbolically, but directly and painfully to basically call Israel to

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