As fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah intensified over the weekend, White House national security and communications adviser John Kirby said the United States was doing “everything we can to try to prevent this from becoming an all-out war with Hezbollah across the border in Lebanon.”
“We’ve been involved in some deep and quite assertive diplomacy,” Kirby told George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday.
Asked about the inevitability of an escalation in the region, Kirby said there were “better ways” to send Israeli citizens home to avoid a worsening of the conflict. Regarding ceasefire negotiations, he told Stephanopoulos that “we have not made any progress here in the last two weeks.”
White House National Security Advisor John Kirby speaks to reporters in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on September 18, 2024 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Kirby also reiterated that the United States was “not involved” in Israel’s covert attacks using pagers and walkie-talkies against Hezbollah in Lebanon last week.
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