Lebanon is balanced as though on an earthquake faultline right now – whatever Israel decides to do next will have massive repercussions throughout the entire region.
That’s how critical the situation is in Lebanon and the surrounding countries, as described by one seasoned Lebanese political analyst.
Khodor Taleb is also the former adviser to three different Lebanese prime ministers, so knows a thing or two about what is at stake.
Mr Taleb is not an isolated voice in warning that an Israeli attack could tip the region into all-out war.
“It will be a huge risk for Israel because it will lead to a big war in the region,” he said.
“It will not be limited to Lebanon. It will definitely spread to Yemen and most probably to the Syrian Golan and the situation will be totally out of control of any international power,” he continued.
“It will be damaging to the whole region.”
His point: Any large-scale Israeli attack against the Lebanese Hezbollah or Iran risks drawing the entire so-called Axis of Resistance into war – and that would involve the Yemeni Houthis, the Iraqi Hezbollah and the various Syrian militias – all of which have links to Iran or Hezbollah.
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3:47
Why the crisis in Yemen is getting worse
‘Revenge will end up with a bigger war’
While Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron was in Israel urging restraint, his Lebanese counterpart was telling us how he is willing him on to succeed.
“I hope the foreign ministers in Tel Aviv or in Jerusalem, wherever they are, they succeed with them [and persuade them not to retaliate]… to take it easy, and not to start a war with Iranians,” Abdullah Bou Habib told Sky News.
“And they started it,” he added. “They were hitting Iran in many Syrian areas and Iran was not retaliating but now after you hit its consulate, you can’t stop them.”
Image: Lebanon’s foreign minister Abdullah Bou Habib
Mr Habib issued his own dire warnings to try to avert a potentially disastrous attack by Israel.
“Any kind of revenge from Israel is going to end up with a bigger war,” he said.
He blamed the inaction by the United Nations (UN) for not definitively condemning the earlier suspected Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus – viewed as the first direct assault by Israel against Iran in more than six months of war in Gaza.
“We are very worried,” the Lebanese foreign minister said.
“We pray for a ceasefire but the UN is not moving in this direction and we are left not able to do anything.”
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3:37
Comparing Israel and Iran’s weapons
Asked whether, like Hezbollah, the Lebanese government welcomed the Iranian drone and missile attack against Israel, he responded: “We don’t welcome it nor do we denounce it.
“We are in a very difficult position because Israel started it. We really want peace – 90% of Lebanese really want peace.”
When questioned about just how much influence the Lebanese government has over Hezbollah, which has a powerful military wing believed to be stronger than the Lebanese army plus a political wing including elected MPs, the foreign minister was brutally frank.
“We don’t have influence with them [Hezbollah] in fighting over Israelis,” he admitted. “And when that happens, we support Hezbollah.”
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But he went on to focus on the nub of the issue: “And other countries… Syria, Jordan… also have problems because of what Israel is doing.
“The UN asked for a two-state solution in 1947, a long time ago, and this is the solution for all the problems in the Middle East.”
Without a two-state solution, he predicted, the Palestinians will never stop fighting.
‘Help us’
In Beirut’s Shatila refugee camp, which is filled with tens of thousands of Palestinians displaced from previous wars with Israel, there is not so much fear of retaliation as frustration at what they view as Western double standards.
Image: Shatila refugee camp in Beirut
Many mentioned to us the lack of Western condemnation of the direct attack on diplomatic soil at the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital – widely accepted to be the work of Israel, though the IDF has never confirmed its responsibility.
“Let them respond,” said political activist Ahed Bahar, referring to an Israeli response to Iran’s attack.
“The Israelis are only a tool of the Americans and take their orders from the US, UK and France,” he said.
Image: Activist Ahed Bahar
The upheaval and high number of casualties in Gaza – caused by Israel’s response to Hamas’s attacks on Israel on 7 October – has drawn together not just Sunnis and Shi’ites in Lebanon but also many of the fractured political parties.
Kazem Hasan, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) chief in the camp, urged the British people to put more pressure on the UK government to help Palestinians.
“I tell to Britain that the struggle [in Gaza] isn’t against terrorism. It’s about Palestinian rights. We need our own state. Put right what you did wrong so many years ago and help us now.”
Image: PLO politician Kazem Hasan
Lebanon is waiting on tenterhooks to see what unfolds over the coming hours, days and weeks.
Additional reporting from cameraman Jake Britton, specialist producer Chris Cunningham and Lebanon producer Jihad Jneid.
Donald Trump has announced a 10% trade tariff on all imports from the UK – as he unleashed sweeping tariffs across the globe.
Speaking at a White House event entitled “Make America Wealthy Again”, the president held up a chart detailing the worst offenders – which also showed the new tariffs the US would be imposing.
“This is Liberation Day,” he told a cheering audience of supporters, while hitting out at foreign “cheaters”.
He claimed “trillions” of dollars from the “reciprocal” levies he was imposing on others’ trade barriers would provide relief for the US taxpayer and restore US jobs and factories.
Mr Trump said the US has been “looted, pillaged, raped, plundered” by other nations.
Image: Pic: AP
His first tariff announcement was a 25% duty on all car imports from midnight – 5am on Thursday, UK time.
Mr Trump confirmed the European Union would face a 20% reciprocal tariff on all other imports. China’s rate was set at 34%.
The UK’s rate of 10% was perhaps a shot across the bows over the country’s 20% VAT rate, though the president’s board suggested a 10% tariff imbalance between the two nations.
It was also confirmed that further US tariffs were planned on some individual sectors including semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and critical mineral imports.
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6:39
Trump’s tariffs explained
The ramping up of duties promises to be painful for the global economy. Tariffs on steel and aluminium are already in effect.
The UK government signalled there would be no immediate retaliation.
Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: “We will always act in the best interests of UK businesses and consumers. That’s why, throughout the last few weeks, the government has been fully focused on negotiating an economic deal with the United States that strengthens our existing fair and balanced trading relationship.
“The US is our closest ally, so our approach is to remain calm and committed to doing this deal, which we hope will mitigate the impact of what has been announced today.
“We have a range of tools at our disposal and we will not hesitate to act. We will continue to engage with UK businesses including on their assessment of the impact of any further steps we take.
“Nobody wants a trade war and our intention remains to secure a deal. But nothing is off the table and the government will do everything necessary to defend the UK’s national interest.”
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0:43
Who showed up for Trump’s tariff address?
The EU has pledged to retaliate, which is a problem for Northern Ireland.
Should that scenario play out, the region faces the prospect of rising prices because all its imports are tied to EU rules under post-Brexit trading arrangements.
It means US goods shipped to Northern Ireland would be subject to the EU’s reprisals.
The impact of a trade war would be expected to be widely negative, with tit-for-tat tariffs risking job losses, a ramping up of prices and cooling of global trade.
Research for the Institute for Public Policy Research has suggested more than 25,000 direct jobs in the UK car manufacturing industry alone could be at risk from the tariffs on car exports to the US.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) had said the tariff costs could not be absorbed by manufacturers and may lead to a review of output.
The tariffs now on UK exports pose a big risk to growth and the so-called headroom Chancellor Rachel Reeves was forced to restore to the public finances at the spring statement, risking further spending cuts or tax rises ahead to meet her fiscal rules.
A member of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), David Miles, told MPs on Tuesday that US tariffs at 20% or 25% maintained on the UK for five years would “knock out all the headroom the government currently has”.
But he added that a “very limited tariff war” that the UK stays out of could be “mildly positive”.
He said: “There’s a bit of trade that will get diverted to the UK, and some of the exports from China, for example, that would have gone to the US, they’ll be looking for a home for them in the rest of the world.
“And stuff would be available in the UK a bit cheaper than otherwise would have been. So there is one, not central scenario at all, which is very, very mildly potentially positive to the UK. All the other ones which involve the UK facing tariffs are negative, and they’re negative to very different extents.”
Israel is beginning a major expansion of its military operation in Gaza and will seize large areas of the territory, the country’s defence minister said.
Israel Katz said in a statement that there would be a large scale evacuation of the Palestinian population from fighting areas.
In a post on X, he wrote: “I call on the residents of Gaza to act now to remove Hamas and return all the hostages. This is the only way to end the war.”
He said the offensive was “expanding to crush and clean the area of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure and capture large areas that will be added to the security zones of the State of Israel”.
The expansion of Israel’s military operation in Gaza deepens its renewed offensive.
The deal had seen the release of dozens of hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, but collapsed before it could move to phase two, which would have involved the release of all hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
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1:08
26 March: Anti-Hamas chants heard at protest in Gaza
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had already issued evacuation warnings to Gazans living around the southern city of Rafah and towards the city of Khan Yunis, telling them to move to the al Mawasi area on the shore, which was previously designated a humanitarian zone.
Israeli forces have already set up a significant buffer zone within Gaza, having expanded an area around the edge of the territory that had existed before the war, as well as a large security area in the so-called Netzarim corridor through the middle of Gaza.
This latest conflict began when Hamas launched an attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages.
The ensuing Israeli offensive has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
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1:22
Bodies of aid workers found in Gaza
Aid group Doctors Without Borders warned on Wednesday that Israel’s month-long siege of Gaza means some critical medications are now short in supply and are running out, leaving Palestinians at risk of losing vital healthcare.
“The Israeli authorities’ have condemned the people of Gaza to unbearable suffering with their deadly siege,” said Myriam Laaroussi, the group’s emergency coordinator in Gaza.
“This deliberate infliction of harm on people is like a slow death; it must end immediately.”
“Liberation day” was due to be on 1 April. But Donald Trump decided to shift it by a day because he didn’t want anyone to think it was an April fool.
It is no joke for him and it is no joke for governments globally as they brace for his tariff announcements.
It is stunning how little we know about the plans to be announced in the Rose Garden of the White House later today.
It was telling that we didn’t see the President at all on Tuesday. He and all his advisers were huddled in the West Wing, away from the cameras, finalising the tariff plans.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is the so-called ‘measured voice’. A former hedge fund manager, he has argued for targeted not blanket tariffs.
Peter Navarro is Trump’s senior counsellor for trade and manufacturing. A long-time aide and confidante of the president, he is a true loyalist and a firm believer in the merits of tariffs.
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His economic views are well beyond mainstream economic thought – precisely why he appeals to Trump.
The third key character is Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary and the biggest proponent of the full-throttle liberation day tariff juggernaut.
The businessman, philanthropist, Trump fundraiser and billionaire (net worth ranging between $1bn and $2bn) has been among the closest to Trump over the past 73 days of this presidency – frequently in and out of the West Wing.
If anything goes wrong, observers here in Washington suspect Trump will make Lutnick the fall guy.
And what if it does all go wrong? What if Trump is actually the April fool?
“It’s going to work…” his press secretary said when asked if it could all be a disaster, driving up the cost of living for Americans and creating global economic chaos.
“The president has a brilliant team who have been studying these issues for decades and we are focussed on restoring the global age of America…” Karoline Leavitt said.
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2:52
‘Days of US being ripped off are over’
Dancing to the president’s tune
My sense is that we should see “liberation day” not as the moment it’s all over in terms of negotiations for countries globally as they try to carve out deals with the White House. Rather it should be seen as the start.
Trump, as always, wants to be seen as the one calling the shots, taking control, seizing the limelight. He wants the world to dance to his tune. Today is his moment.
But beyond today, alongside the inevitable tit-for-tat retaliation, expect to see efforts by nations to seek carve-outs and to throw bones to Trump; to identify areas where trade policies can be tweaked to placate the president.
Even small offerings which change little in a material sense could give Trump the chance to spin and present himself as the winning deal maker he craves to be.
One significant challenge for foreign governments and their diplomats in Washington has been engaging the president himself with proposals he might like.
Negotiations take place with a White House team who are themselves unsure where the president will ultimately land. It’s resulted in unsatisfactory speculative negotiations.
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6:03
Treasury minister: ‘We’ll do everything to secure a deal’
Too much faith placed in the ‘special relationship’?
The UK believes it’s in a better position than most other countries globally. It sits outside the EU giving it autonomy in its trade policy, its deficit with the US is small, and Trump loves Britain.
It’s true too that the UK government has managed to accelerate trade conversations with the White House on a tariff-free trade partnership. Trump’s threats have forced conversations that would normally sit in the long grass for months.
Yet, for now, the conversations have yielded nothing firm. That’s a worry for sure. Did Keir Starmer have too much faith in the ‘special relationship’?
Downing Street will have identified areas where they can tweak trade policy to placate Trump. Cars maybe? Currently US cars into the UK carry a 10% tariff. Digital services perhaps?
US food? Unlikely – there are non-tariff barriers on US food because the consensus seems to be that chlorinated chicken and the like isn’t something UK consumers want.
Easier access to UK financial services maybe? More visas for Americans?
For now though, everyone is waiting to see what Trump does before they either retaliate or relent and lower their own market barriers.