Middle East Tensions: What is Israel's endgame as conflict enters its second year amid escalation?

CGTN

The one-year Israel-Hamas conflict has widened across the Middle East. The world is seeing Israel's larger scale incursion into Lebanon, and a recent response from Iran saw the country launch a missile barrage. Is there further escalation to come? And what is Israel's endgame? Our reporter Zhou Jiaxin files his observations.

When I asked about the potential for a wider conflict on Israel's northern border a year ago, then key advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu said their deterrence strategy didn't seek escalation, but warned no one knows what's next.

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DR. GUY BURTON Political Analyst on Middle East Affairs Proxies and De-sectarianism Project, Lancaster University "In many ways of the last 12 months we've seen is that Israel has made it very clear – either you're with us or against us. And if you're not actively supporting us, we have question mark about you. And the idea that there's actually going to be a flashpoint making this substantially greater, I'm not entirely convinced."

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GUY BURTON Political Analyst on Middle East Affairs Proxies and De-sectarianism Project, Lancaster University "What we now have is in Israeli politics is there has been over the last couple of decades a major shift to the right. They absolutely do not believe in the two-state solution. The question then becomes how does the war come to an end. If it is not coming from the government, it comes from pressure within the Israeli society of which it is not clear that's happening at the moment."

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