The United States is urging Israel and Iran to constrain reprisal attacks as it works to avoid an all-out regional war.
“What we are focusing on … is having … de-escalation conversations,” White House Press Secretary Katherine Jean-Pierre told reporters in Washington on Tuesday.
The White House has worked both on preventing further violence and on constraining future violence once it happens, even as it has clarified that the US would take defensive action to protect Israel against a direct Iran attack.
“We’ve been clear that we will defend Israel, but we do not want this conflict to escalate or spread,” Jean-Pierre stated.
“We’ve convened the same messages to our counterparts in the region and asked them to encourage Iran to refrain from escalating tensions,” she said, adding it was also concerned by threats from the Iranian proxy group Hezbollah.
Jean-Pierre said the Iranian proxy group Hezbollah has not executed its reprisal attacks against the we do not believe the response
“We do believe the [reprisal] response has started yet,” she stated.
Jean-Pierre also emphasized the importance of a hostage and Gaza ceasefire deal.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said late Monday afternoon, “We are engaged in intense diplomacy, pretty much around the clock, with a very simple message: all parties must refrain from escalation.”
“All parties must take steps to ease tensions. Escalation is not in anyone’s interest,” Blinken said, adding that “It will only lead to more conflict, more violence, more insecurity.”
US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew held meetings with several Israeli politicians on Tuesday, including United Right Party head Gideon Sa’ar and Shas Party head Aryeh Deri.
Sa’ar told him, “Israel has no interest in a war of attrition.”
Deri, who had been part of the former war cabinet, discussed with Lew the integrated Israeli-US preparations in case of an Iran attack as well as ways to advance the hostage deal as the White House said it was in its final stage.
As tensions mount, Nasrallah threatens Israel and security
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah vowed to retaliate against Israel for its assassination last week in Beirut of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr.
”Whatever the consequences, the resistance will not let these Israeli attacks pass by,” he said in a televised address to mark one week since the assassination of Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut.
“Our response, God willing, will be strong, effective, and impactful,” he said in a speech that was met with cheers from members and supporters of Hezbollah who gathered to watch in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Just before the speech began, Israeli warplanes swooped low over the Lebanese capital, setting off a series of sonic booms that rattled windows across the city and sent people ducking for cover. Nasrallah began by saying these were “small-minded” attempts by Israel to provoke people.
“Nobody in Lebanon or abroad can ask us to deal with the aggression that happened last Tuesday as a normal aggression within the context of the battle that has been going on for 10 months,” he said.
He also addressed Iran’s pending response to the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, a killing widely blamed on the IDF. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the hit.
“Iran will respond, and Hezbollah will respond, and the enemy waits… Making the enemy wait is part of the punishment,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has asked Iran’s Supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for a restrained response to Israel’s suspected killing of Haniyeh, advising against attacks on Israeli civilians, two senior Iranian sources said.
The message, according to the sources, was delivered on Monday by Sergei Shoigu, a senior ally of the Kremlin leader, in meetings with top Iranian officials as the Islamic Republic weighs its response to the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh.
Tehran also pressed Moscow for the delivery of Russian-made Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets, the two Iranian sources, privy to the meeting in Tehran, the sources told Reuters.
In Moscow, the Kremlin did not respond to a request for comment. State-run RIA news agency reported on Tuesday that Shoigu said he discussed Haniyeh’s killing on his Tehran visit.
The two sources with knowledge of the matter did not provide further details on the talks with Shoigu, who was defense minister before becoming the secretary of Russia’s security council in May.
They said Shoigu’s visit was one of several avenues Moscow had used to relay to Iran the need for restraint while at the same time condemning Haniyeh’s killing as “a very dangerous assassination” in a bid to prevent a Middle East war.
The Middle East, the sources said, was on the brink of a major war, and those behind the assassination were clearly trying to trigger such a conflict.
Russia has cultivated closer ties with Iran since the start of its war with Ukraine and has said it is preparing to sign a wide-ranging cooperation agreement with Tehran.
There was no immediate comment from Iran’s Foreign ministry. On Monday, it said Tehran did not seek to raise regional tensions but needed to punish Israel to prevent further instability.
In Lebanon, a prominent Lebanese source close to Hezbollah said, “A retaliatory strike is inevitable, and diplomacy is no longer a viable option,” adding Iran wants the strike to be “severe” but not lead to a regional war. However, he said, this does not rule out the possibility of a war in Lebanon between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel.
A Middle East-focused senior U.S. official said Washington was doing all it could “to dissuade all parties from going to a place they can’t get back from,” stressing that other states in the region and Europe should do more. A Qatari official said Doha was in constant discussion with Iran to lessen tensions.
