Military pressure can enable diplomacy but has risk

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Military pressure can enable diplomacy but has risk

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government, reacting to *******’s heavy bombardment in Lebanon, said on Sunday that military pressure can enable diplomacy but can also lead to miscalculations.

******** air attacks battered Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight and early on Sunday while dozens were ******* separately in Gaza as the ******** army launched a new incursion in the north.

The region has been on edge awaiting *******’s response to a missile ******* from Iran last week that Tehran carried out in retaliation for *******’s escalations in Lebanon. The Iranian ******* ultimately ******* no one in ******* and Washington called it ineffective.

“Military pressure can at times enable diplomacy. Of course, military pressure can also lead to miscalculation. It can lead to unintended consequences,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told CNN that ******* was coordinating its response to Iran with the ******* States but would make its own independent decisions.

“Everything is on the table,” CNN quoted him as saying.

The ******* States said it supports ******* going after extremist targets in Lebanon like Iran-backed Hezbollah militants but does not want the targeting of civilians or civilian infrastructure.

“We’re in conversations with ******* about all these factors now. We have been clear and consistent that further escalation is in no one’s interest,” the spokesperson added. “Every civilian casualty is one too many.”

Washington’s occasional condemnation of ally ******* over civilian ****** tolls in Gaza and Lebanon has mostly been verbal, with no substantive change in policy even as the ******* States has seen months of protests demanding an arms embargo.

Washington’s goal is to reach a ceasefire in Lebanon to provide space for diplomacy, the State Department added.

The ******* States and France put forward a 21-day ceasefire proposal for the *******-Lebanon border in late September. Washington and its allies also expressed support for a ceasefire in Gaza. However, efforts on both fronts have ******* thus far.

******* has since escalated its military campaign in Lebanon which in recent days has ******* hundreds, wounded thousands and displaced over 1 million people. ******* says it is targeting Hezbollah.

French President Emmanuel Macron said over the weekend that shipments of arms to ******* should be stopped. ******* said such a step will serve the purposes of Iran.

A Gaza ceasefire deal between ******* and ************ Islamist group ****** has not been reached due to gaps in exchanges of ******** hostages and ************ prisoners as well as *******’s demand that it maintain presence in a corridor on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip bordering Egypt.

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old ********-************ conflict was triggered on Oct. 7, 2023, when ****** attacked *******, ******** 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to ******** tallies.

*******’s subsequent military ******** on the ******-governed enclave has ******* almost 42,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that ******* denies.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Mark Porter)

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