While acknowledging “Israel has a real and legitimate problem” with Iranian-backed terror proxy Hezbollah, “we don’t think that war is the solution,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told “NBC Today” on Wednesday.
“After the horrific events of Oct. 7 by Hamas in Israel in the south, Hezbollah from Lebanon joined in and started firing rockets into Israel. People who lived in northern Israel had to evacuate their homes. Villages were destroyed. Homes were destroyed. Seventy thousand Israelis were forced from their homes,” said Blinken.
People in Southern Lebanon had to leave their homes, too, as Israel and Hezbollah engaged in cross-border strikes, he said, adding that the best way to return to a secure situation was through “diplomatic agreement.”
Blinken said the United States is pushing for forces to be pulled back from the border, so “that’s what we’re driving toward.”
He said Washington is focused on working with various partners at the U.N. General Assembly in New York on a “plan to de-escalate.”
“But if there were to be a full-scale war—which we don’t have and which we’re working to avoid—that’s actually not going to solve the problem. It’s unlikely that people would be able to return home if there’s a full-scale war going on,” said Blinken.
White House National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby told CNN on Wednesday that “we really have been working hard since the beginning of this conflict to prevent it from escalating and deepening and broadening, and one of the key areas that we’ve been trying to prevent escalation is between Israel and Hezbollah up along that border with Lebanon.”
However, he described as “deeply concerning” Hezbollah’s firing of a ballistic missile at Tel Aviv, describing it as “evidence again … that Israel is facing a legitimate threat from a terrorist group backed by Iran.”
The Israel Defense Forces early on Wednesday intercepted a surface-to-surface ballistic missile fired by Hezbollah terrorists at central Israel. The Iranian proxy claimed that the target of the attack was the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.
“No nation should have to live with these threats right across their border, right next door,” said Kirby.
