Antony Blinken is getting frustrated with the actions of the Israeli military.
On Wednesday, the secretary of state expressed this frustration following surprise attacks the Israeli military carried out in Lebanon, targeting Hezbollah fighters by detonating pages and walkie-talkies that they use.
Blinken was in Egypt on Wednesday when he spoke, as he was traveling there to try to advance negotiations for a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel in the ongoing war in Gaza.
The U.S. is working with a few international partners to try to bring the war to an end. They also are looking to cool off the heightened tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, as Israeli leaders have threatened to increase their military action there.
In response to a question about the pager explosions that happened in Lebanon a day earlier, Blinken responded:
“Time and again … we’ve seen an event that makes the process (cease-fire negotiations) more difficult, might derail it.”
The pager explosions resulted in 12 people being killed, two of whom were children, with another 2,800 injured. The next day, 20 people were killed and more than 450 were wounded when walkie-talkies that Hezbollah members had exploded in Lebanon.
Israel hasn’t officially confirmed it is responsible for those attacks, but they did make mention of an escalating war.
According to The Associated Press, Yoav Gallant, the defense minister in Israel, told troops Wednesday:
“We are at the start of a new phase in the war — it requires courage, determination and perseverance.”
While he didn’t mention the explosions directly, he did praise the hard work of security agency’s and the army in Israel, saying “the results are very impressive.”
Blinken’s comments actually came before the walkie-talkie attacks happened. At the time, he said that the United States still was gathering information about the circumstances surrounding the pager attacks, and he declined to comment more specifically about it.
What Blinken did say after meeting with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi was that both Hamas and Israel needed to show they actually were interested in a cease-fire deal that would also result in hostages being freed.
As he said:
“The most important thing in this moment is to see a demonstration of political will.”
Some people have accused Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, of “slow-rolling” cease-fire talks, as an agreement could ultimately result in his hardline coalition government collapsing. Some members of that government oppose coming to any agreement in any form with Palestianians.
This is the 10th time that Blinken has visited the Middle East since Israel’s war with Hamas started in October 2023.
It was meant to be a consultation trip with Egyptian officials, where they would refine the terms of a final proposal that they were going to present to Hamas and Israeli officials.
Following the two deadly attacks in Lebanon this week, though, those talks might have to be put on hold … again.
