Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, talks with Renee Montagne about Israel's strategy for dealing with Hezbollah, Hamas and its Arab neighbors.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host: Several more people have been killed today as the Israeli army and Hezbollah gunners exchange fire across the Israeli-Lebanese border for the sixth straight day. Rockets fired from Lebanon have struck deeper into Israel than ever before, as Israel continues to pound Beirut and other Lebanese cities, including the Northern city of Tripoli.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, host: Mark Regev is spokesman for Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Good morning.</s>Mr. MARK REGEV (Spokesman, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs): Good morning.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, host: You have said that there's no going back to the status quo. So what is Israel's end game in this current fight?</s>Mr. MARK REGEV (Spokesman, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs): Well, in the immediate short term, we're trying to neutralize the ability of Hezbollah to launch rockets and missiles against Israeli cities.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, host: We're obviously assuming that this entire fight is about more than the release of two soldiers held by Hezbollah. What would bring an end to the crisis?</s>Mr. MARK REGEV (Spokesman, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs): Well, the United Nations has two resolutions on the books, and these resolutions call for the disarming of Hezbollah. This is not only in Israel's interest. This is in the interest of Lebanon. Anyone who wants to see a free, democratic, sovereign Lebanon has to want to see this proxy for outsiders, this armed terrorist extremist group disarmed.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, host: How do you hope to disarm Hezbollah though by launching massive attacks on Lebanese infrastructure and civilians unrelated or at least not related directly to Hezbollah?</s>Mr. MARK REGEV (Spokesman, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs): We've been hitting Hezbollah and the Hezbollah infrastructure so as to prevent Hezbollah from being rearmed. I mean if this is going to be over soon, it will have to happen because we have neutralized their ability to hit at us, and part of that is cutting off their supply routes.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, host: Israel bombed a main road from Lebanon to Syria, in part arguing at the time that word had gotten back that the soldiers were perhaps on the way to Iran via Syria. Is Israel prepared to bomb Syria?</s>Mr. MARK REGEV (Spokesman, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs): No. We don't want to extend the conflict with either Syria or Iran. The bombing of the road between Beirut and Damascus was of course to prevent the movement of the hostages out of Lebanon, but also as to what I said before, to prevent the re-supply of Hezbollah with more rockets, more missiles, more technologies. I mean when people think of Hezbollah, sometimes people aboard think of this sort of ragtag group of guerillas with a couple of AK-47s and maybe a bazooka or two.</s>Mr. MARK REGEV (Spokesman, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs): I mean you're talking about a very, very advanced military organization. We saw it when they hit our navy vessel two days ago. They've got surface to sea missiles that a lot of conventional armies don't have, supplied by Iran and Syria. And it's very important that we isolate them from their sources of weaponry, and that we neutralize their ability to rain these missiles down on Israeli cities.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, host: Well, isolating them by way of embargos is one thing, but is Israel prepared to bomb either Syria or Iran?</s>Mr. MARK REGEV (Spokesman, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs): We're not planning to do that. I mean, obviously, if they started with us, we'd defend ourselves. But we've got no intention to initiate.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, host: And what would be starting with Israel?</s>Mr. MARK REGEV (Spokesman, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs): If Syria suddenly launched Scud missiles into Israel, that would be something that would deserve our attention. But once again, I'm hopeful that that sort of thing wouldn't happen, that the regime in Damascus is not interested in a regional escalation either. I think the game plan here is to bring about the full implementation of those UN resolutions in Lebanon, and that can be done by weakening Hezbollah, by isolating Hezbollah from its radical supporters in Tehran and in Damascus, and then by - and we saw it in the G-8 yesterday in St. Petersburg - the more active energized involvement of the international community as a whole in bringing about the implementation of those resolutions of the UN Security Council.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, host: Thank you very much for talking with us.</s>Mr. MARK REGEV (Spokesman, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs): Thank you for having me.</s>RENEE MONTAGNE, host: Mark Regev is spokesman for Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He joined us from Jerusalem.