The US was “not involved” in the series of pager explosions in Lebanon and was “not aware” of any attacks in advance, according to State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
“The United States was not aware of this incident in advance and at this time we are gathering information,” Miller said Tuesday (17), who repeatedly referred to the matter as an “incident.”
Miller did not say what information the US has so far and did not say whether the country believes Israel is responsible or not.
Hezbollah and Lebanon blamed Israel for the attack, which wounded about 2,800 people and killed at least nine, according to the Lebanese health minister.
The Israel Defense Forces did not comment.
“I don’t have any assessment to offer one way or the other at this time,” Miller said.
Miller did not say whether the U.S. would make its own assessment, but said it was “collecting information in all the ways we normally collect information.”
“We are gathering information through diplomatic channels as well as other channels regarding this incident,” he said. The spokesman did not say whether the U.S. had held talks with Israeli or Lebanese officials.
“I don’t want to prejudge what we’re going to say in the next few days,” Miller said.
Asked if there were any indications that Iran might retaliate given reports that the Iranian ambassador had been wounded, Miller said he did not want to speculate until those reports were confirmed.
“I have seen the reports. I don’t want to talk about what the implications might be before a report is confirmed. But certainly, as is always the case, we urge Iran not to take advantage of any incident, any instability, to try to add more instability and further escalate tensions in the region. That has been our message to Iran since October 7,” he said.
Miller also repeated that the US believes there needs to be a diplomatic solution to the conflict in northern Israel with Hezbollah, and that it is important for Israel and Hamas to reach a ceasefire to make a diplomatic resolution in the north easier.
The spokesman said it is “very difficult to get a diplomatic resolution in the north without a resolution to the conflict in Gaza, without a ceasefire in Gaza, and that is why we continue to push for that ceasefire, because we think that will help make it much easier to get a resolution.”
Miller did not say how the U.S. sees this attack affecting ceasefire negotiations.
This content was originally published in US says it is “not involved” in series of pager explosions in Lebanon on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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