US downplays ability to prevent escalation after Lebanon pager explosions

Washington, DC – The United States has said it does not want to see further escalation between Israel and Hezbollah after the Lebanese armed group blamed Israel for a series of deadly, coordinated handheld pager blasts.

But the administration of US President Joe Biden, which remains Israel’s top military and diplomatic backer, on Tuesday also sought to downplay its ability to tamper tensions between the pair.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday afternoon, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Washington was not involved in the apparent attack and was not given prior notification that it would occur.

“I will say that our overall policy remains consistent, which is, we do want to see a diplomatic resolution to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah,” Miller said. “We are always concerned about any type of event that may cause further escalation.”

But when pushed on whether the Biden administration’s influence – the US provides Israel with $3.8bn in military aid annually as well as staunch diplomatic support – could be used to prevent a wider war, Miller said that was “not just a question for the United States”.

“Of course, it’s a first … order question to Israel. It’s a question to Hezbollah, but is a question to all of the other countries in the region about what type of region they want to live in,” he said.

“So the United States is going to continue to push for a diplomatic resolution.”

Miller’s remarks come as rights advocates have urged the Biden administration to apply pressure on Israel to end its war on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians since early October and decimated the coastal Palestinian enclave.

Analysts have repeatedly accused Washington of acting as both an “arsonist and firefighter” by continually refusing to leverage US military aid to its “ironclad” ally despite the risks that a prolonged Gaza war could lead to a wider regional escalation.

Hezbollah, which has been exchanging cross-border fire with Israel since the war in Gaza began, blamed Israel for Tuesday’s pager blasts and pledged that it would get its “fair punishment”.

The Israeli army has yet to comment on the explosions.

The Lebanese health minister said at least nine people were killed, including an eight-year-old girl, when the pagers exploded across Lebanon. About 2,750 people also were injured, including 200 in critical condition.

Asked about the apparently indiscriminate nature of the explosions, Miller at the US State Department declined to comment directly on what happened.

However, he said that, broadly speaking, the US position is that “no country, no organisation should be targeting civilians”.

‘Mud in their face’

The explosions took place as the Biden administration continues to say it is pushing to broker a Gaza ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian faction that governs the territory.

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was travelling to the Middle East for the latest meeting with mediators.

“President Biden doesn’t have a whole lot of time, the US election is less than 60 days away,” Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett reported from Washington, DC.

“So if [the Lebanon explosions] are something that Israel is in fact responsible for, this is certainly discouraging to the United States.”

The deadly blasts also came less than a day after White House adviser Amos Hochstein met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to push for de-escalation along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.

Following the meeting, Netanyahu’s office released a defiant statement saying Israelis would not be able to return to evacuated areas along the Lebanon border “without a fundamental change in the security situation in the north”.

Ramy Khoury, a distinguished fellow at the American University of Beirut, called the Israeli response to the US appeal “par for the course”.

“The Israelis routinely not only neglect what the Americans tell them, but throw mud in their face,” Khoury told Al Jazeera.

“The Americans have very limited capabilities in terms of their diplomatic action. They’ve focused more on military support for Israel and sanctions against Israel’s foes.”

Khoury added that US “diplomatic efforts are not taken very seriously by most people in the region” due to the country’s unconditional support for Israel.

“The US should be a huge diplomatic actor,” he said. “But it is clearly on the side of Israel and everything it does has to fit into the priorities of Israel.”