Blinken: Most 'Immediate Way' To Achieve Diplomacy In Middle East Is Through Gaza Ceasefire

3 months ago

State Secretary Antony Blinken was asked about ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon and Israel.

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Transcript

00:00On Lebanon, so as I mentioned earlier, one of our objectives from day one, since October 7th,

00:05has been to prevent this conflict from spreading, including in the north. And as you mentioned,

00:13Thomas Hochstein is in Lebanon, in the region, working on this. We've all collectively been

00:18working on this for many months and intensely, again, in recent weeks. No one wants escalation.

00:24No one wants to see the conflict spread. And one of the paradoxes I think we have in this moment

00:30is I don't think any of the potential belligerents actually want to see a war or conflict spread.

00:37I don't believe Israel does. I don't believe Hezbollah does. Lebanon certainly doesn't,

00:41because it would suffer the most. I don't believe that Iran does. And yet you have

00:47– have momentum potentially in that direction, because with the back and forth that goes on

00:53every day, there is always the possibility of miscalculation, of one side not fully seeing

01:00what the other is doing. And it's very important to do everything we can to arrest that and to find

01:07a diplomatic resolution to the challenge that exists for Israel, as well as for Lebanon.

01:14In Israel, there are something like 60,000 or 70,000 Israelis who have been forced from their

01:18homes. They've basically depopulated a big part of northern Israel because of the threat from

01:23Hezbollah, because of Hezbollah launching rockets into Israel and making life impossible. There are

01:29many Lebanese in southern Lebanon who are also not able to live in their homes and live in their

01:34towns. So we're working diplomatically to find a resolution to this so that people on both sides

01:42of the line have the confidence to be able to live in their homes and go back to their – where

01:50they live. Now, here again, so much of this comes back to the ceasefire. The most immediate way

01:59to empower our diplomacy and to be able to reach an agreement that allows people to return to

02:04their homes and live in security would be through a ceasefire in Gaza, because Hezbollah has tied

02:11the actions that it's committing against Israel to Gaza. So if we get that ceasefire, I think that

02:18will make it more likely that we can find a diplomatic resolution to the crisis in the north.

Blinken: Most 'Immediate Way' To Achieve Diplomacy In Middle East Is Through Gaza Ceasefire

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