Kirby on Israel: The U.S. Is Doing Everything We Can to Prevent This from Becoming an All-Out War with Hezbollah

STEPHANOPOULOS: “So what exactly is the United States doing now to advance a diplomatic initiative?”
KIRBY: “We have been involved in extensive and quite assertive diplomacy. In fact, our — one of our envoys, Amos Hochstein, who I think you know, was in the region just a few days ago. We will certainly keep up those conversations as best we can. And we’re talking to both sides here.”
STEPHANOPOULOS: “This seems to have been — this latest escalation seems to have been sparked by the pager detonations by Israel earlier this week. I know that you’ve said the United States did not get a heads-up there. Is the United States concerned about what some have said is a relatively indiscriminate — I mean, indiscriminate effect of these pager detonations?”
KIRBY: “There’s not a lot I can say about those incidents. I’m not going to get into the details of it. As I also made clear, we weren’t involved in it. I will just say, though, George, that we are watching all of these escalating tensions that have been occurring over the last week or so with great concern, and we want to make sure that we can continue to do everything we can to try to prevent this from becoming an all-out war there with Hezbollah across that Lebanese border. We don’t want — in fact, we’ve been working since the beginning of this conflict, October 8th and on, to try to prevent an escalation, to prevent a broadening of this conflict there, in and around Israel, but also in the region.”