While the Pentagon is labeling Israel and Hezbollah's exchange of hundreds of rockets on Sunday morning as a "large-scale attack," the US is not viewing this stage of tensions as the start of the wider regional conflict the Biden administration has been working to prevent, Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder told reporters on Tuesday afternoon.
The IDF and Hezbollah entered a new, much more dangerous phase of the conflict in the North early Sunday morning, with hundreds of air force jets striking thousands of Hezbollah rocket attack platforms.
With Israeli intelligence observing that Hezbollah was about to launch its largest attack of the current war, including to the Tel Aviv and central Israel areas, around 5:00 a.m., the IDF preemptively and independently struck targets where Hezbollah was on the verge of firing on Israel.
Starting at around 5:30 am on Sunday, Hezbollah claimed it launched around 320 rockets at northern Israel, including at areas like Safed and Acre, and at 11 military bases, which to date have mostly been left alone by the Lebanese terror group.
Threat is contained, US says
"Right now, we still assess that the conflict between Israel and Hamas is contained to Gaza. You have seen the cross-border strikes between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah since October 8. What you saw over the weekend, of course, was a much larger scale than what we've seen previously," Ryder said. "But it is, in our view, not a wider regional conflict at this stage, and so we're going to continue to stay very focused on de escalation of tensions in the region,
Lebanese Hezbollah had [said] that they intended to retaliate, and by all accounts, they did, Ryder said, adding "Israel was well prepared to respond and defend themselves."
Ryder said from a US standpoint the Pentagon was focused on supporting the defense of Israel and "ensuring that this did not escalate into a wider conflict and that continues to be our focus."