WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. will continue pursuing diplomacy to avert an escalation of the conflict between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah, the State Department said on Tuesday.
“We’re continuing to work toward a diplomatic resolution that would allow Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return to their homes and live in peace and security. We certainly want to avoid any kind of escalation,” State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told a briefing.
Patel spoke after a strike on a Beirut suburb that the Israeli military said was carried out against a senior Hezbollah commander it said was responsible for a missile strike on the Golan Heights that killed 12 children and teenagers.
Patel declined to comment when asked about the incident, saying that “it just clearly happened.”
He reiterated that U.S. support for Israel remained “ironclad” as the Jewish state confronts threats from Iran and its “malign proxy groups” like Hezbollah.
“Israel has every right to defend itself” and “certainly faces threats like no other country does in that region of the world,” he said.
(Reporting by Jonathan Landay and Daphne Psaledakis; Editing by Chris Reese and Paul Simao)
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