The U.S. State Department on Tuesday denied having any prior knowledge of or involvement in a series of explosions that appear to have targeted Hezbollah terrorists across Lebanon and Syria.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller Refused Trump specifically responded to multiple questions about the explosion during a press conference on Tuesday, insisting that President Joe Biden's administration is still “gathering information” and doesn't want to address the situation until it has a better idea of what happened.
At the Pentagon, spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder similarly declined to provide specifics about the explosion, claiming he had “no information to provide” to reporters on the subject. Ryder said that to his knowledge, no Pentagon employees currently use pagers.
Reports show Hundreds of pagers, antiquated portable communication devices popular in the days before mobile phones, were reported to have exploded simultaneously in several Lebanese cities and parts of Syria. The pagers are reportedly carried by hundreds of Hezbollah terrorists, who were using them to avoid Israeli infiltration of their communications. Panic erupted in Lebanon after videos of targets' hips suddenly exploding in supermarkets and other public places went viral. The United Arab Emirates newspaper The Arab reported: Nationwide Reported Lebanese hospitals are overwhelmed, with some receiving dozens of patients at a time and lacking the resources to respond adequately.
“The Lebanese Red Cross said more than 30 ambulances were in use across the country, with another 50 on alert.” Nationwide Added.
As of Tuesday night, Lebanese officials confirmed that the exploding pager had killed nine people, including at least one child, and injured more than 2,700. Among those injured by the pager was the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, suggesting he was part of a Hezbollah communications network that was likely the target of the attack.
The Israeli government is widely perceived as the power behind the attack, but Israeli officials have not claimed responsibility or commented at press time. Lebanese authorities and Hezbollah terror leaders claim they have evidence that Israel orchestrated the attack, according to a Hezbollah-linked propaganda outlet. Al Mayadeen.
The incident was reported by Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Expected Some of the ministers, who met with government officials in Cairo, Israel, focused on diplomatic efforts to end Israel's war with the Sunni terrorist organization Hamas. Hezbollah is a Shiite terrorist organization patronized by Iran, the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, which has supported the organization since Hamas' brutal attacks on civilians in Israel in October 2023.
State Department spokesman Miller declined to discuss potential explanations for the explosion in Lebanon, insisting Washington had no prior knowledge of, and was not involved in, any such attack.
“We are gathering information about this incident and can state categorically that the United States was not involved in this and the United States had no prior knowledge of this incident,” Miller said. said “At this point, we are still gathering information,” he told reporters.
“We are gathering information the same way journalists around the world gather the facts about what happened,” Miller added, suggesting the Biden administration had not been briefed on the operation against Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon.
Miller suggested it was “too early” to tell whether the pager incident would have any impact on ceasefire negotiations between the Israeli government and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas began its siege of Israel on October 7. He noted that in support of Hamas, Hezbollah launched a terrorist campaign against northern Israel, rendering the strip uninhabitable for tens of thousands of legitimate residents, but then mistakenly equated Israel's self-defense efforts with Hezbollah attacks. The Israeli government estimates that Hezbollah attacks on the northern border since October 7 have forced the displacement of some 60,500 Israeli citizens.
“We agree that it would be intolerable for tens of thousands of Israeli families to be forced to leave their homes, just as it would be intolerable for tens of thousands of Lebanese families to be forced to leave their homes,” Miller said, adding that “we have determined that a diplomatic solution is the best way to get them home, because it is difficult to see how you can get families home quickly on both sides of the border, given what a military conflict would mean.”
Miller also argued that without an end to the war with Hamas, it will be “very difficult” to resolve Hezbollah's military operations against northern Israel.
Given the US government's apparent irrelevance in the current Middle East turmoil since October 7, and Biden's repeated failure to negotiate ceasefires and adequately support Israel in its quest to completely destroy Hamas, a journalist asked Miller whether the State Department still believed it had the leverage to limit the scale of the conflict, “because it seems like that leverage is slipping out of your hands.”
Miller said the issue is “not just an American issue” and that the Biden administration is getting involved because “we believe it's our responsibility as a world power,” not because of the country's far-reaching and, according to Biden, “ironclad” alliance with Israel.
Miller also offered little clarification as to why Secretary of State Blinken was traveling to Egypt without a planned stop in Israel, other than to claim that there was no cease-fire plan “that we can present to Israel at this time.”
Tuesday's lack of American leadership in the face of the shocking news from Lebanon is reminiscent of a similar attempt by the Biden administration to distance itself from the killing of Hamas “political” leader Ismail Haniyeh in July. Haniyeh was reportedly killed in his dormitory on July 30 while visiting Tehran to attend the inauguration of President Massoud Pezeshkian.
“This is something that we were not aware of and had no involvement in,” Blinken said at the time, adding that “it is vital that we help end the suffering of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. It is vital that we bring home the hostages, including several Americans.”
Hamas took an estimated 250 hostages on October 7, of which about 100 were killed. Believed As of this week, he remains in confinement.
Biden has criticized the Israeli government, which has been trying to rescue hostages in the Gaza Strip, for not making enough efforts to reach an agreement with Hamas to release the hostages until early September.
Vice President and current Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris argued this week that if elected in November, she would maintain Biden's foreign policy on Israel and the Middle East.
“We need to get this. [ceasefire] “The deal needs to get done and it needs to get done immediately. That's my position, that's my policy. We need to get this deal done,” she insisted.
