The United States warned Iran not to increase risks for a regional war in the aftermath of an unusual attack in which hundreds of Hezbollah pagers exploded in Lebanon, killing at least eight and wounding over 2,700 people.
“We would urge Iran not to take advantage of any incident, any instability… to further increase tensions in the region,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters in Washington on Tuesday.
Both he and White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre denied any United States involvement in the attack, which appeared to return the region to the brink of a larger Israel-Lebanese war.
The attack came after Israel said it had foiled a plot by Hezbollah to assassinate a former senior defense official in the coming days.
Israel is widely believed to have masterminded the pager attack but has not claimed responsibility for it.
Miller said that “the US was not involved in it [the pager attack]. The US was not aware of this incident in advance.” He underscored the US’s commitment to a diplomatic resolution to both of Israel’s wars with Iranian proxy groups – Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
US special envoy Amos Hochstein was in Israel on Monday in efforts to secure a diplomatic resolution to the constrained IDF-Hezbollah war, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant appeared to pivot toward a military solution.
Netanyahu held a series of security consultations on Tuesday after the security cabinet met late Monday night. According to the Prime Minister’s Office, the cabinet “updated the objectives of the war to include… returning the residents of the North securely to their homes. Israel will continue to act to implement this objective.”
Already on Monday, Gallant said that a military solution was the only way to end the almost year-long cross-border war with Hezbollah. Netanyahu said that the security situation along the northern border had to change before the residents could return.
Escalations rising between Israel and Hezbollah
Israel and Hezbollah had appeared to be on the verge of a larger war in August – with the possibility of Iranian involvement – after Israel assassinated Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr. The tension, however, had eased over the last month but ratcheted up on Tuesday as Hezbollah said Israel would receive “its fair punishment” for the blasts.
Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary condemned the detonation of the pagers – used by Hezbollah and others in Lebanon to communicate – as an “Israeli aggression.”
A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the detonation of the pagers was the “biggest security breach” the group had been subjected to in nearly a year of conflict with Israel.
Various media outlets reported that Lebanon plans to file a complaint against Israel with the United Nations Security Council.
UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said that the developments in Lebanon were highly concerning, especially given the “extremely volatile” context, adding that the UN deplores any civilian casualties.
Many of those wounded included Hezbollah fighters who are the sons of top officials from the armed group, two security sources told Reuters.
One of the fighters killed was the son of a Hezbollah member of the Lebanese parliament, Ali Ammar, they said.
“This is not a security targeting of one, two, or three people. This is a targeting of an entire nation,” senior Hezbollah official Hussein Khalil said, while paying his condolences for Ammar’s son.
Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, suffered a “superficial injury” in Tuesday’s pager blasts and was under observation in the hospital, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency said.
Miller said that the US wanted to see a diplomatic resolution that would allow the thousands of displaced civilians on both sides of the northern border to return home.
“That’s what we are continuing to pursue,” he said.
“We are always concerned about escalation,” he said, adding that “it remains our message to both Israel and to other parties that they needed to do everything they can to try and reach a diplomatic resolution.”
He stressed what many diplomats have said – that ultimately a peaceful resolution to the constrained IDF-Hezbollah war rests on a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal, which the US is pushing to conclude.
It “is very difficult to get a diplomatic resolution in the North – absent a resolution to the conflict Gaza, absent a ceasefire in Gaza – which is why we continue to push for that ceasefire because we think it’ll help make it much easier to reach a resolution,” Miller said.
He took issue with Israel’s assessment that the only plausible solution was a military one, explaining that diplomacy was the fastest way to return civilians to their border homes.
“If you look at what a military conflict would entail. It’s hard to see how that gets those families on either side of their border back to their homes quickly,” he said.
Miller said he had no timetable for the conclusion of a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal, but noted that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was traveling to Egypt Tuesday to advance it.
Egypt and Qatar have been the main mediators for the deal to return the remaining 101 hostages.
“The Secretary is on his way to Egypt right now. We’ll be meeting with Egyptian officials about a number of things, but squarely on the agenda is how we get a proposal that we think would secure agreement from both parties.
“Ultimately, we want a proposal that’s going to get to ‘yes,’” Miller said.
Reuters contributed to this report.