dpa
Washington/beirut
The United States on Monday called for a diplomatic resolution to the soaring tensions between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah.
“We believe that there is still time and space for a diplomatic solution,” said National Security Council adviser John Kirby, as Israel prepared to respond to the attack in the Golan Heights that killed at least 12 children and young people at the weekend.
Kirby said the United States does not want Israel’s war on the Palestinian group Hamas in the Gaza Strip to “escalate.” “We don’t want a second front to be opened there in the north,” he added.
The US government has held intensive talks with various actors over the weekend, Kirby said.
“Based on the discussions we’ve had, we don’t believe this has to lead to an escalation or a wider war,” he stated.
At least two people were killed on Monday in an Israeli drone strike in southern Lebanon, the state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported.
The agency also reported that there were injuries as a result of the drone attack, among them a child who was standing on the balcony of his house when the attack took place on a road between Shaqra and the southern border town of Mais al-Jabal. Initially, a car was targeted, but when a motorcycle approached the car it was also attacked.
It was not immediately clear whether those killed were members of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement. The Israeli military did not initially comment.
After a rocket attack on the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights which killed at least 12 people on Saturday, the Israeli government is preparing for a retaliatory strike on Lebanon.
Israel has blamed Hezbollah for the attack, but the group has denied any link to the incident. Since the beginning of the Gaza war, there have been repeated confrontations between Israel’s army and militant groups such as Hezbollah in the Israeli-Lebanese border region.
