US Leads Effort to Curb Israeli Anger Hezbollah Retaliates: Don't Bomb Beirut Lebanon

JAKARTA - The United States (US) is leading diplomatic action to prevent Israel from attacking the Lebanese capital, Beirut, or key civilian infrastructure in response to a deadly rocket attack on the Golan Heights.

Washington is racing to avoid a full-blown war between Israel and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement after an attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan killed 12 children and teenagers over the weekend, according to five people who included Lebanese and Iranian officials plus Middle East officials and European diplomats.

Israel and the US blamed Hezbollah for the rocket attack, although the group denied responsibility.

The focus of the high-speed diplomacy is to limit Israel's response by urging it not to target densely populated Beirut or key infrastructure such as airports and bridges, said the sources, who asked not to be named to discuss the matter.

Reviewed by Reuters, Tuesday, July 30, Lebanese parliament deputy speaker Elias Bou Saab has been in contact with US mediator Amos Hochstein since the Golan attack on Saturday last week.

He told Reuters that Israel could avoid the threat of a major escalation by sparing the capital and its surroundings.

“If they avoid civilians and avoid Beirut and its environs, then their attacks are well calculated,” he said.

Israeli officials say their country wants to hurt Hezbollah but not drag the region into all-out war.

The two Middle Eastern and European diplomats said Israel had not made any commitment to avoid attacks on Beirut, its suburbs or its civilian infrastructure.

The U.S. State Department said it would not comment on specific diplomatic talks, though it is seeking a long-term solution to end all cross-border attacks.

“Our support for Israel’s security is steadfast and unwavering against all Iranian-backed threats, including Hezbollah,” a spokesman told Reuters.

White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters that Israel had the right to respond to the Golan attack, but no one was seeking a wider war.

“As for the conversations over the weekend, you can be sure we did and we did at various levels,” Kirby said.

“But I’m not going to go into detail about those conversations,” he added.

The Israeli prime minister’s office did not respond to a request for comment, while Hezbollah declined to comment.

Five people with knowledge of the diplomatic efforts over the past two days have been involved in the conversations or briefed on them.

They said the efforts were aimed at achieving a calibrated rapprochement similar to the one in April between Israel and Iran, sparked by an Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus.

An Iranian official said the United States had also conveyed messages to Tehran at least three times since Saturday’s attack on the Golan Heights.

Iran has warned that escalating tensions would be detrimental to all parties.

Hezbollah is the most powerful of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” regional proxy networks and is allied with the Palestinian group Hamas.

It has been trading barbs with the Israeli military along Lebanon’s southern border since the Gaza war erupted in October.

A French diplomat told Reuters that since the Golan attack, Paris had also been involved in passing messages between Israel and Hezbollah to defuse the situation.

France has historic ties with Lebanon, which was under French mandate from 1920 until gaining independence in 1943.

Paris has maintained close ties since then and has about 20,000 citizens in the country, many of them dual nationals.

Israel’s Home Front Command, the military unit responsible for protecting civilians, has so far not changed its instructions to citizens, indicating the military does not expect any danger from Hezbollah or other groups.

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet authorized the prime minister and defense minister to “decide the manner and timing of a response” to Hezbollah.