Inside Lebanon as Israel and Hezbollah wage war

March 18, 2026·32 min·2 clips

A man in Lebanon describes finding neighbors blown to pieces after an Israeli strike during Ramadan iftar.

A second front is burning. Manveen Rana treats Lebanon as the quieter edge of the wider Middle East war, then hands the story to reporting from the ground. Louise Callaghan describes driving through Tir, seeing the damage, and meeting Abu Jafar near a site where generators had been hit. The place is still smoking. Twisted metal, ruined generators, and people picking through rubble make crossfire feel less like a briefing-room word and more like a street-level fact. Then the episode pulls back. Hezbollah is described as a terror group by the US and UK, but also as a serious Lebanese political movement. That tension sits at the center of the conversation. The guest explains how Hezbollah is armed, politically dug in, and strong enough in parts of the south and Beirut's southern suburbs to behave like a state within a state. Its power shows up in ordinary places: banks, schools, civil defense, even Boy Scouts. The movement fills spaces where the Lebanese government has little reach. The ideology is direct too. Hezbollah is presented as a Shia Islamist movement, allied to Iran, and committed to the destruction of the state of Israel. Support is messier. The episode notes backing among Shia Lebanese, support from some Christians who see Hezbollah as resisting Israel, and growing frustration inside areas Hezbollah dominates. Tom Ball closes without a clean answer. A ground incursion alone, he suggests, is unlikely to remove a movement so tied into Lebanese society and wider financial networks. The episode leaves the listener with force, dependency, grievance, and civilians paying the bill.

As heard by us

A grave, well-briefed look at Lebanon's second front and Hezbollah's reach.

Lebanon sits at the center of this episode, which starts with damage on the ground and then widens to Hezbollah as both a political and military force.

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Why you'd press play

You get the destruction in Lebanon and the logic behind Hezbollah's grip.

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