This week’s Friday Focus is all about Israel’s pager and walkie-talkie attacks on Hezbollah members in Lebanon. Rudyard argues that you can’t continuously fire rockets at civilian neighbourhoods in northern Israel without expecting a response. But Hezbollah is not Hamas: its army has a vast and sophisticated weapons arsenal that has the potential to overwhelm Israel’s defense capabilities. Janice and Rudyard disagree over Iran’s level of influence over Hamas and Hezbollah. Are they puppets of Tehran, or partners with similar objectives? In the second half of the show, Rudyard and Janice discuss the long-term global ramifications of using this type of advanced technology in warfare. How does international law apply? Both worry that in the age of AI, civilian infrastructure has become part of the battlefield and anybody with access to code can weaponise everything from our phones to our fridges.