The United States is no longer only warning Iran. It is striking. Not because Washington is looking for a new war in the Middle East. It’s on the opposite of that. Trump is trying to reach an agreement, keep the Strait of Hormuz open, reduce pressure on energy prices, and close the Iranian story without being dragged into another forever war.
But the revolutionary guards are doing exactly the opposite. Every time it looks like the negotiations are getting close to a decision point, they ignite another front. One time it’s a ship in the Strait of Hormuz. Another time drones near shipping lanes. Another time the Houthis threatening the Red Sea. And then yet another time fire towards American bases.
And then another day the demand to tie Lebanon into every agreement with Iran. And it looks less like negotiations and more like an attempt to blow them up without saying out loud that they don’t want to sign. Because if Iran really wants an agreement, why does it keep threatening global shipping? Why does it strengthen its grip on the Strait of Hormuz? Why does it activate the Houthis exactly when the Americans are trying to move forward? And why does Tehran try to turn every Israeli strike against Lebanon into a regional crisis? That is the method of the Revolutionary Guard. Talk about diplomacy, but keep fire alive at every point. Keep the negotiations alive, but make sure no one can reach them calmly. Show Trump that an agreement with Iran will not be only about the nuclear issue, but also about Hormuz, Lebanon, the Houthis, and Tehran’s ability to ignite the Middle East at any moment.
And this is where our story begins today because it did not begin in it began in the Dahiyeh. Israel struck a command center in the heart of the Shia district of Beirut after fire towards northern Israel. Within hours, Iran responded by launching missiles towards Israel. Israel struck deep inside Iran. In response, Trump stopped the Israeli expansion.
And then almost immediately after that, the United States itself entered into open fire against Iran. And this is the question of this episode. Are we still looking at separate fronts? Lebanon, Gaza, Iran, Hormuz, Yemen, or at one system that’s operated by the same head?
I’m Matthew Shashani and this is Ground Report. The world sees the latest image: a strike in the Dahiyeh, strikes in southern Lebanon, targeted eliminations in Gaza, aircraft over Iran, sirens in Israel, fire in the Gulf. But the average viewer has a hard time connecting all the dots. From their point of view, Israel is attacking again. Lebanon again, Gaza again, headlines about escalation once more.
But what if the real story is not “Israel is attacking”? What if the real story is that one country, Iran, spent years building an entire system around Israel, and every time Israel begins to dismantle one part of it, the whole system responds? On June the 7th, Israel struck in the Dahiyeh. This was an unusual strike because the Dahiyeh is not just another neighborhood in Beirut. It is the symbol of Hezbollah, the urban center from which the organization built power, immunity, deterrence, and control for years. Israel updated the Americans in advance and the message was clear. If fire goes towards the north, Beirut is no longer immune either. Tehran understood the message and that is why Iran responded.
The revolutionary guards launched missiles towards Israel and claimed they were responding to the strikes in the Dahiyeh in southern Lebanon. This was not only a military response. It was a declaration of ownership. From Iran’s point of view, if Israel attacks in Lebanon, Iran has the right to respond directly against Israel. That’s exactly the equation Israel can’t accept. Because if Iran succeeds in turning every Israeli operation against Hezbollah into a direct crisis with Tehran, then Hezbollah receives immunity through the negotiations with the United States. Instead of a terrorist organization paying the price for firing at the north, Iran is trying to bring Washington into the picture and turn every Israeli strike on Lebanon into a diplomatic crisis.
And then came the Israeli response. The Israeli Air Force operated inside Iran, hit detection and air defense systems, and also struck a sensitive target in the petrochemical industry near Mahshahr. This was not only a signal of anger. It was a strike on infrastructure that allows Iran to renew stockpiles, to rebuild production lines, and to return to threaten Israel again in two or 3 months.
But then came the phone call from Washington. And according to reports, Israel was preparing for a broader wave of strikes. Dozens of aircraft were expected to take part. Some of the discussion also dealt with deeper strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure. And then Trump stopped it all. He did not want the Israeli strike to become a major regional war. Exactly when he was still trying to preserve the possibility of an agreement with Iran, whatever that was worth.
And here the story took another turn because while Trump was trying to stop Israel, the Iranians continued playing with fire. The American Apache near Hormuz went down. Washington determined that Iran was responsible. The United States struck targets inside Iran. Air defense systems, radars, control stations, and military sites around Bandar Abbas, around Qeshm, Sirik, and Jask. Iran did not just stay quiet. It launched towards American bases in the region, including Jordan, Bahrain, and Kuwait. Most of the missiles and drones were intercepted, but the message was clear. If Iran is hit, the revolutionary guards will try to set the entire American regional space in the Middle East on fire.
That’s exactly the axis connecting this episode. Hezbollah in Lebanon on the one hand, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, militias in Iraq, threats throughout Hormuz, and fire towards American bases. All of these are not separate events. They are part of a system built to allow Iran to fight without always looking like the one starting the war.
And here Ysef Hadad enters the story not as the center of the episode but as someone who explains why the world is missing the story. Ysef is both Arab, Christian, Israeli, a son of Nazareth, a former officer in Golani. He knows the language. He knows the street, the Arab and Christian narrative and the way people in the West like to speak on behalf of Middle Eastern people they almost never listen to.
“Ysef, first of all, thank you for coming and being on the show. We’re really interested to hear what you have to say. I’m going to dive right into it and I’ll start from the end. Recent research that has come out in recent weeks, Pew Research before that, several other big documents and long-term studies show a very alarming trend around the world. The world is turning against Israel. The world is overwhelmingly choosing to believe what I would call false narratives. You and I, our channel, we work very hard to try to spread the truth. Do you feel like we’re winning or there’s a chance to change people’s opinion? What is your sense of all of this?”
“No. Winning. We’re not winning in the terms of PR. That’s for sure. Let’s not, you know, kid ourselves. We know that this is not the situation. But can we turn the things? Of course, 100%. But we need to take some measures in order for us to actually turn these things because the simple thing is that our enemies, what I call them, the BDS movements, the terrorist supporters, the pro-Palestinians, they’re doing something very smart. They are focusing only in the modern history where Arabs existed in the land of what we know today as Israel. But they will never ever tell you what was before that. For them, there’s a point of where the history starts. But if you go back in time, you’ll find that there is way more history that actually prove what I’m saying and proves the actual history. And by the way, I have to say, you know, for the anti-Israel people, well done. Job well done. You really managed to rewrite history, to erase history, and to twist the facts. To that, I’ll tell you, good job. But it doesn’t mean that it’s the truth and it doesn’t mean it’s the facts. And that’s why I’m fighting it. And I’m fighting it by the way, and this is my last sentence, through all the holy books. Plus, if you don’t believe whether it’s in Judaism or Christianity or in Islam and you are a secular, then you have the most important book to you, which is the evidence of the archaeology that they’re doing and digging since thousands of years in Jerusalem and in the land of Israel. And so anyone who wants to debate about history whether is through the Bible or the Torah or the Quran Karim or through actual evidence of the archaeology you’re more than welcome to come here and that is our problem. When we start speak and teach the history and people realize that that’s the truth and that’s the real history then things will change.”
Ysef says something uncomfortable in the war of public diplomacy. Israel is not winning right now. The world is moving away and in many countries, a majority of the public now holds a negative view of Israel. Even in the United States, the base of support is no longer something that can be taken for granted. This didn’t happen in a single day. It happened because for years, Israel’s enemies learned how to tell a very simple story. Israel is the aggressor and everyone facing Israel is a victim. But reality on the ground is almost never that simple. The world sees an Israeli strike in Lebanon and asks, “Why is Israel destroying homes?” That’s a hard question to answer, and it deserves a serious answer.
But the answer can’t begin with a last image. It has to begin with the system Hezbollah built inside Lebanon with the villages, with the tunnels, the command centers, the anti-tank positions, the weapons depots, the drones and launchers that allow fired fire towards northern Israel and then disappearance back into civilian population again using humans as a shield.
This past week that was no longer theory. The IDF continued operating entire soul in Nabatieh around the Beaufort ridge and in southern Lebanon. In several areas, evacuation warnings were issued to residents and after them came strikes. At the same time, forces on the ground continued locating and neutralizing infrastructure, including underground spaces designed to allow the organization to remain close to the border even after a political arrangement. Beaufort Castle is a good example. It’s not only a symbol from past wars. It’s a point of control over southern Lebanon and northern Israel. When Israel operates there, it’s not only returning to history. It’s trying to dismantle a layer of control that has built opposite our communities.
“I want to for the sake of our viewers that might not know you to say that you do something that’s very very unique. You’re an Israeli, but you’re also Arab. You’ve also served in the army. And oftentimes people start with these attacks on you and then they understand, wait a minute, you speak our language. Wait a minute, you know the Quran. Wait a minute, you know our narrative in this even better than we do. And it surprises them. Would you say you’ve been able to change people’s opinions on the topic when they encounter you or encounter, you know, something that sort of debunks these automatic hatred sort of speeches that they have about Israel, about what happens here in the world? Have you seen success in that personally?”
“Absolutely. And this is what I’m trying to say to everybody. Usually when I encounter advocates or activists, they could be pro-Palestinian activists, they could be pro-Israeli activists. And by the way, you can have activists for human rights who are actually and I do respect them who are on defense. It means that they are coming to my lecture with good faith. And if I manage to back up my truth and whatever I say with facts, this guy at the end of my lecture, they’re going to come to me and say, ‘You know what?’ To convince us, for the pro-Israelis my mission is very simple to strengthen them to tell them guys you’re on the right side of the history. And as for the anti-Israel people, and this is exactly to your question, look in 45 minute of a lecture with 15 minutes of Q&A, I’m not going to convince an anti-Israel person with a Hamas symbol on his head. Okay, he’s a terror supporter. But my mission to them is different from the group number one and group number two my mission is very simple to piss them enough to make them angry as much as possible. But if you ask me with one-on-one that I actually can sit down and convince anti-Israel people, terror supporters, yes, I haven’t done that. I have actually evidence for that. And you have activists who uploaded videos and shared that they changed their views after a talk with me. But I’m going to give you a hell of an example where I actually spoke to a Christian activist with a cross, wearing a cross, and we start speaking. She did not know that I’m an Arab. She did not know that I’m a Christian. She only knew that I’m from Israel. And I see the cross and I start talking to her and she’s talking to me about the fact that Israelites and the Jews are the occupiers. And I said, ‘Hold on, hold on, hold on. I see you’re wearing the cross. By the way, just to let you know, I’m actually not a Jew. I’m an Arab Christian from Nazareth in Israel.’ Now, let me tell you this because I see that you’re wearing the cross. Here’s my question to you. John 1:11 he says in Arabic I’m reading it because I’m reading the way I read my Bible which is in the Arabic language translation was born in the Jewish town of Bethlehem. This sentence was written 226 years ago. This is 700 years before whom I asked whom and further than that we have a sentence. He came to his own. His own denied him when he entered Jerusalem. Who are his own? The Jews. Another evident to the Jewish present in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. And then you want to tell me that the Arab who claim to be a Palestinian Muslim is the right owner of a land where you have Jewish presence of three and 4,000 years and then Christian presence for 2,000 years and then the people who came 700 years later they have the right for that land. You can’t convince men. If you do think that then you’re not a real Christian. So what are you? Are you a Christian? Because if you don’t believe this, take your cross because you don’t believe your Bible. Guess what? She’s now a pro-Israeli.”
“Amazing.”
This is one of the most important parts of the interview. Ysef is not speaking here only as an Israeli. He’s speaking as an Arab Christian from the Middle East. When he hears Christians in the West present Israel as the enemy of Christians in Lebanon, he explodes. Not because there is no civilian pain, not because there are no mistakes, but because he says the world wakes up only when it can blame Israel, but it’s much quieter when Christians or Jews, Sunnis, and Shiites who are not loyal to Hezbollah live under the fear of an Iranian militia.
This must be said carefully. Israel must examine every civilian harm, every violation by a soldier, every attack on a religious symbol, and every operational failure must be investigated. But Ysef points to a real double standard. Israel is required to explain every operation, Hezbollah builds war inside homes, inside villages, inside Lebanon itself. That’s exactly what Hezbollah wants. It fires, it hides, it presents itself as Lebanon’s defender and then lets the world blame Israel when Israel tries to dismantle its infrastructure.
Now, at the same time, the same methodology operates in the Gaza Strip. There too, the world sees an Israeli strike and asks why Israel continues. But in recent days, the IDF and Shin Bet eliminated Hamas figures connected to October 7th and to rebuilding of the capabilities in southern Gaza Strip. They were involved in storing weapons, in training, and planning attacks against IDF forces. In other words, Hamas has not disappeared. It is trying to change shape. A terrorist organization does not need to control every street in order to remain dangerous. It’s enough for it to preserve cells, money, weapons, tunnels, commanders, and mechanisms of fear. Where there’s a ceasefire, it collects weapons. When there’s international pressure, it rebuilds cells. When Israel withdraws too early, it tries to rebuild the command system that will allow the next attack.
And here, Ysef asks a question the world does not like to hear. What do you want Israel to do? Turn off Iron Dome so you can see what thousands of rockets do to Israeli cities? Wait for a mass casualty event so the response will look more proportional, quote unquote, to you?
“I want to tell you that I think you’re hitting a very important point. I think a large portion of our viewers would consider themselves Christians or believe in Jews of different sects. And I’ve seen I think a substantial uptick in people that say we love Israel. Sometimes it’s past tense. We loved Israel. And now we’re confused. Why is Israel fighting in Gaza? Why is Israel also in Lebanon? Why are you ruining homes? Just on Thursday I was with the IDF in southern Lebanon and a bunch of the comments were you couldn’t possibly be you know a true Jew or a true Christian because Israel is destroying the homes of people in Lebanon and what about Syria and what about Iraq?”
“Listen to me, listen to me. I’m an Arab Christian son of a priest from Nazareth. I urge my army to destroy every house on the border of southern Lebanon north of Israel. Every house, every Shia Muslim Iranian village should be destroyed house by house, room by room because the Iranian regime and Hezbollah which is the proxy of the Iranian regime occupied south of Lebanon terrorizing Lebanese Christian and Lebanese Muslim Sunni and Lebanese Jerusalem. So if you guys have a problem with the fact that Israel is doing what it is because you have a problem with Jews, I am the Arab Christian telling you, ‘Shut up. Be quiet. My country is defending my community. My country is IN FACT DEFENDING THE CHRISTIAN community in Lebanon. What are you talking about?’ And my country is defending its people, BOTH ARABS AND JEWS. SHUT UP. BE QUIET BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT AND I’m fed up with it. And I want to talk about the hypocrisy, THE ABSOLUTE HYPOCRISY OF THOSE SO-CALLED Christian activists. Where were you WHEN TURKEY TURNED THE CHURCH INTO a mosque, where were you when Muslim Brotherhood, EXTREME MUSLIMS ATTACKED OUR CHRISTIAN BROTHERS IN EGYPT, IN SYRIA, massacred them in Lebanon, terrorizing them? Where are you? Huh? What is the DOUBLE STANDARD? WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENED IN ISRAEL, we should condemn and absolutely we should condemn any attack on any Christian and it doesn’t matter in in fact in any religion because we were human beings but I ask if you would have done the noise that you have done around an IDF soldier decimating actually and we should condemn a cross of Jesus but never ever you literally told the full story and the whole truth which is watch this this is crazy because as the Christian I’m so proud of my army, the IDF that literally literally took care of this problem as soon as possible and took the right measures. But my country did that. When the IDF soldier did something like this to a cross of Jesus, yeah, the chief of staff of the IDF was the first to condemn this. The prime minister condemned this. Then the soldier who did this went to prison. The soldier who filmed him went to prison. The six soldiers that were present in the scene but did nothing went to prison. Do you understand? And further than that, my country ended up doing a a whole new statue and gifting it to the Christian village in Lebanon. Stop the double standard and the hypocrisy. I can’t stand IT BECAUSE IF YOU WOULD HAVE SPOKEN 10% of how you SPEAK ABOUT ISRAEL, LIFE OF CHRISTIANS IN EGYPT AND IN LEBANON and in SYRIA WOULD HAVE BEEN SAVED. CHURCH IN TURKEY WOULD HAVE BEEN SAVED. SO BE silent and trust me when I tell you Israel is the only only safe place for Christian community in the Middle East. I hope I was very clear about it.”
This story is important because it shows how narratives break. People arrive with slogans and then they meet someone who knows the Bible, the New Testament, the Quran history and archaeology. Someone who’s not frightened when they speak in the name of Arabs or in the name of Christians. And then suddenly the story they received on campus or on social media does not hold up against reality. But we must not make a mistake. There is real criticism of Israel. Civilians are harmed in Lebanon and in Gaza. There are difficult images. There are real questions about the price of the war and the day after.
Precisely because of that the whole picture has to be told. Criticism without context becomes a weapon. In the Dahiyeh we saw it. If Hezbollah fires towards northern Israel, Israel strikes a command center in Beirut. If Israel strikes in Beirut, Iran fires at Israel. If Iran fires at Israel, Israel strikes in Iran. If Israel prepares to expand, Trump stops it. And if Iran hits an American helicopter near Hormuz, the United States strikes by itself.
This is no longer a local event. It’s a chain event. And in that chain, Hezbollah keeps Lebanon inside. It rejects arrangements that demand a withdrawal from southern Lebanon. It tries to preserve weapons, infrastructure, and control. From Israel’s perspective, the meaning is clear. As long as Hezbollah remains armed in southern Lebanon, the north does not truly return to life.
“People often condemn Israel of being this, you know, this apartheid state. And they say, well, you attack Arabs in Israel, you attack Arabs in Judea and Samaria, you do that in Lebanon and Syria, etc., etc. I think you as an Arab who is Israeli can explain this in a way that most people miss. They see the narratives, they see the headlines. I think just the other day I was corresponding with someone who said she’s been watching us for several years and says, ‘But I found out the truth.’ And her truth version was Israel harming Christians in Lebanon, settler violence in Judea and Samaria. And I said, ‘Do you want to really talk about context or do you just want to yell things at me?’ And you know, I find that to be very very problematic in engaging with. What do you say to those people that you know just cherry pick the information?”
“So, so here’s the thing actually. If I It’s sad. I’m laughing because otherwise I would be crying. Christian is harmed by the IDF. You know, in 2006 I participated in the second Lebanon war. I actually was in Bint Jbeil. It’s a village in southern Lebanon. You know, many of the Christian and the Muslims who live in that village flee before we entered. Some stayed. Those who stay we need to secure them you know to make sure that they are not terrorists and not part of Now I speak Arabic so I’m in the front line when I go into a house where there’s still a family there and the father of the family the Christian family that was there greeted me and the second he learned that I speak Arabic as a mother tongue language because I’m an Arab obviously he starts calling me by my name which is Captain Ysef and when he asked me and when he sorry when he spoke to me he said something that I will never ever forget he says like this, ‘If you think that Hezbollah is terrorizing you guys meaning the Israelis then you have no idea what they are doing to us here inside southern Lebanon. Please this time finish the job.’ I actually want to address this father of that house and tell him I’m sorry that we did not finish the job. I’m sorry that we did not finish the job because of the international community stopping us time after time from actually liberating Lebanon from the Iranian regime. I’m sorry that we failed to liberate you from the terrorist organization. I truly I am sorry but I promise you Israel after the 7th of October is completely different society and even the Christian in Israel are completely different society. So as the Druze community in the Golan Heights and in Syria are completely different society meaning supporting Israel. I promise you as a citizen of Israel, as a Christian citizen of Israel, this time we will not allow the Iranian regime and the terrorist organization to continue and do bad things to our Christian brothers in southern Lebanon. We will shout your shout and we will defend you guys. I promise you this.”
Ysef’s story from the second Lebanon war breaks the accepted narrative. Not every Lebanese person living under Hezbollah supports Hezbollah. Not every Christian in the Middle East sees Israel as the enemy. And sometimes the people the world thinks it is protecting are exactly the people asking someone to dismantle the militia living above them, next to them, and under them.
This brings us back to Iran because Iran wants the world to think about every front separately. Gaza is Gaza, Lebanon is Lebanon, Yemen is Yemen, Hormuz is Hormuz. But for Israel, these are not separate stories. This is a ring of fire.
“You know the final question. I think a lot of people are confused by the big picture. Iran being behind all these different things. I think they have trouble believing sometimes how evil the Iranian regime is and how much money and energy they’ve spent in building proxies and and wars and killing people around the world. What would you say to someone in the United States who’s watching right now and just doesn’t get what’s happening here as far as the big picture? What do they need to understand?”
“Yeah, it’s it’s actually a perfect question because a lot of the people do not understand that the fact that we are fighting in Lebanon but we’re not fighting the Lebanese. The war is not between Israel and Lebanon. In fact, we have a lot of criticism towards the government of Lebanon because they’re not doing enough to liberate their own people from the terrorist organization which is a proxy of the Iranian regime. Meaning he was sent there to occupy southern of Lebanon only to be their proxy for their own use. For instance, the simple simple evidence to that we did not start a war with Lebanon ever. And in fact, every time something that happened, it’s because in 1982 it was the PLO. After that, it was Hezbollah and then started the war in 2006. And may I remind everybody, Hassan Nasrallah himself said Hassan is the puppet of Yes. So he’s a part of the Iranian regime. He himself said, ‘If I would have known that the result of 2006 would be that destruction to Beirut and southern Lebanon, I would have not engaged and started and opened the war.’ They opened the war in the name of Gaza, in the name of Palestine, and in the name of the IRGC. Then you go to the 7th of October. On the 8th of October, there wasn’t even one single boot of an IDF soldier. Okay? Yet the terrorist organization decided to back Gaza. And opened on fire on thousands of rockets on Israeli territory. What you expect us to do? Just sit down and watch you guys saying, ‘Oh, you know what? They’re attacking you with your few missiles. You have the Iron Dome. No problem. Use the Iron Dome. You will be good.’ What do you guys want? Do you want to see that we shut down the Iron Dome so you see what a thousand rocket will do? How much in like a five minutes 1,000 2,000 or 3,000 people will be injured and dead. That’s what you want us to say to do in order to fulfill your satisfaction. But here’s the thing, we’re not we demand our country to save us. We demand our country to protect us. And this is why you have to understand whatever is happening right now in the Middle East, whether it’s Hamas backed up by Iranian regime or the Houthis in in Yemen or in Iraq or the terrorist organization in Lebanon or before the revolution in Syria with Bashar Assad and the proxy inside Syria. All of them were working for one snake and that snake is Iran and the head of the snake that we chopped his head. But we still need to continue chop all of our enemies to make sure that Iran cannot sustain their ability to attack us from one meter from our border. So basically to sum it up, whatever you see today on the ground is a war between the IDF and the state of Israel and the terrorist Iranian regime led or used to be led by and now by his son Mojtaba. But inshallah soon we will send Mojtaba and be united with his father in hell.”
“Ysef thank you very much and thank you for fighting for the truth. I think me and everyone behind this channel deeply appreciate it.”
“Guys, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you.”
This is the heart of the episode. The average viewer sees many small wars. Israel sees one structure. Iran builds a ring of fire around Israel. It activates proxies and then uses diplomacy to stop Israel exactly when those proxies begin to break. This method tries to make the world believe that Israel is fighting people, Lebanese people, Gazans, Arabs, Christians, Muslims. But Israel says it is fighting armed organizations that hid inside those people, used them, oppressed them, and dragged them into wars they did not choose.
And here comes the hardest question. What happens if Israel stops before this system is broken? If Hezbollah remains in southern Lebanon, if Hamas rebuilds cells in Gaza, if the Houthis continue threatening the Red Sea, and if Iran receives time, money, and renewed access to the oil markets, then that kind of quiet is not peace. It’s just a pause. And in the Middle East, a pause like that can be only a nice name for rearming.
When the Americans struck inside Iran and the Iranians fire towards American bases, we received another reminder. This war does not stay in a single place. It moves from front to front until someone dismantles the structure that connects them all. The battle over Israel is not taking place only in the skies above Beirut, in his tunnels, in the alleys of Gaza, or even in the Strait of Hormuz. It’s also taking place inside the mind of the viewer, sitting thousands of miles from here, seeing only one image from a whole war. If the world continues to see only the Israeli strike and not the Iranian system behind it, will it understand the danger only after that ring closes around Israel?
