Hundreds of handheld pagers exploded near simultaneously across Lebanon and in parts of Syria on Tuesday, killing at least eight people, including members of the militant group Hezbollah and a girl, and wounding the Iranian ambassador, government and Hezbollah officials said.
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NewsTranscript
00:00So we are gathering information on this incident.
00:03I can tell you that the U.S. was not involved in it.
00:07The U.S. was not aware of this incident in advance, and at this point we're gathering
00:11information.
00:12And what information have you gathered so far?
00:14We'll continue to collect information.
00:16I don't have any public readout to give now, but we're collecting information in the same
00:21way that journalists are across the world to gather facts about what might have happened.
00:25So I never want to either comment or speculate about the impact of any one incident, especially
00:30in the early stages of an incident.
00:33And I'm not going to do so here.
00:34That's been our consistent policy to try and avoid doing.
00:36I will say that our overall policy remains consistent, which is we do want to see a diplomatic
00:42resolution to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
00:46We want to see one that allows the tens of thousands of Israelis who've been displaced
00:50from their homes and the tens of thousands of Lebanese who have been displaced from their
00:53homes to be able to return home.
00:56And that's what we are continuing to pursue.
00:58How concerned are you about escalation now after this attack?
01:03So again, I don't want to draw any specific conclusions about this incident yet or speculate
01:07about what might happen for them.
01:08I will say that, of course, since October 7th, we have seen any number of incidents
01:16that have led to the heightened risk of escalation.
01:19That has been a feature of the conflict across the blue line since October 7th.
01:26And so we are always concerned about escalation.
01:27We are always concerned about any type of event that may cause further escalation.
01:31And it remains our message to both Israel and to other parties that they need to do
01:38everything they can to try and reach a diplomatic resolution.
01:41That said, we go back to the fundamental, I know people get tired of hearing me say
01:44this, we go back to the fundamental issue we face here, which is very, very difficult
01:48to get a diplomatic resolution in the north absent a resolution to the conflict in Gaza
01:53absent a ceasefire in Gaza, which is why we continue to push for that ceasefire because
01:56we think it'll help make it much easier to reach a resolution.
02:00So how do you see this incident's impact, the Gaza ceasefire talks then?
02:06I think it's too early to say.
02:07Look, this is an incident that just occurred in the past few hours.
02:10We're continuing to gather information about it.
02:12I wouldn't want to make, I wouldn't want to speculate or make any predictions about what
02:15might happen.
02:16I will just say what we believe are legitimate targets and what are not legitimate targets.
02:20We believe that civilians are not legitimate targets for any type of operation and that
02:24no country should be targeting civilians.
02:26No country, no organization should be targeting civilians.
02:30Members of a terrorist organization are legitimate targets for countries to launch operations against.
02:36Those are the principles that we hold ourselves to and those are the principles we expect
02:41other countries to uphold in their operations.
02:43I don't want to speak to what the implications might be before a report is confirmed, but
02:47certainly, as is always the case, we would urge Iran not to take advantage of any incident,
02:53any instability, to try to add further instability and to further increase tensions in the region.
02:59That has been our message to Iran since October 7th.