White House warns against escalation in Mideast

WASHINGTON: The White House on Wednesday warned all sides against escalation in the Middle East after two days of blasts in Lebanon, widely attributed to Israel, on hand-held devices targeting militant group Hezbollah.

“We still don’t want to see an escalation of any kind. We don’t believe that the way to solve where we’re at in this crisis is by additional military operations at all,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

“We still believe that the best way to prevent escalation, to prevent another front from opening up in Lebanon, is through diplomacy,” Kirby said.

Iran, which supports Hezbollah, had held back from major retaliation after an attack inside Tehran that killed the visiting political leader of Hamas.

Israel has been engaging in regular skirmishes with Hezbollah since the October 7 attack by Hamas, also backed by Iran’s clerical state.

Asked if Israel was adhering to international humanitarian law in the blasts on pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon, Kirby replied: “As we have said from the very beginning, Israel has a right to defend itself.” “How they do so matters to us, and we don’t shy away from having those kinds of conversations with the Israelis as appropriate,” he said, without confirming Israeli involvement.

As for the United States, Kirby echoed previous statements denying involvement: “We were not involved in yesterday’s incidents or today’s in any way.”In a related development, senior diplomats from the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Italy will meet on Thursday in Paris to discuss the spiralling tensions in the Middle East, sources said on Wednesday.

The meeting will take place as fears grow of an all-out war engulfing the region, with conflict raging in Gaza and after two days of exploding pagers and other devices in Lebanon, an unprecedented attack the country´s Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group has blamed on Israel.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will join his counterparts from Washington´s allies in the French capital after discussing the possibility of a Gaza war truce in Cairo.

During his visit, aimed at salvaging stalled negotiations mediated by Egypt, Qatar and the United States to end the conflict, he said a ceasefire in Gaza would be the best way to stop violence from spreading across the Middle East.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who said he will attend, added that the group would also discuss the war in Ukraine.