Patrick Wintour

This is The Guardian.

I do think there's a clock ticking.

The more he says here, we sit back and relax, something's going to go hysterically wrong.

The tensions inside Iran are palpable.

It's always been the Iranian position that if there's to be a ceasefire, it's a ceasefire on all fronts.

I still think both sides don't want to go back to full-fledged war.

Yes, I think the Israelis are stepping up all their activity in Lebanon.

They've gone north the Litani River, which is seen to be the kind of bridge point.

And as you say, they're probably now heading into the southern suburbs of Beirut.

And there is a mass sort of cars rushing to get out.

And no one quite knows exactly whether Netanyahu has got permission from the Americans to

really be active in Beirut.

It's certainly influencing and affecting a great deal of what the negotiations about Iran because the Iranians have always said they will protect Hezbollah and the level of attrition of their senior military commanders is now kind of quite remarkable.

And the death tolls over 3,000.

And evacuations, I think, of about 20% of the whole population.

And I think there's so much pressure now on the Iranians to say that they won't permit this to go on.

Well, the justification from Israel is that they believe Hezbollah have made the life in northern Israel impossible because of the drone attacks and because of the missile launches.

I mean, Hezbollah is a reduced organization in comparison with what it was.

I mean, some people have compared it more to a kind of guerrilla army than a sort of terrorist army.

But they're still causing a lot of damage and including to death toll of Israeli soldiers there.