After the blasts in Lebanon, Blinken warns against more violence in the Middle East

Antony Blinken, the U.S. Secretary of State, warned Wednesday against the risk of violence in the Middle East after the explosion of thousands of Hezbollah pagers, which could have derailed his latest effort to improve relations in the region.

The explosions were reported while the top U.S. minister was in Cairo meeting with top Egyptian officials to try to get a ceasefire in Gaza and improve relations with Egypt.

Hezbollah, a militant group, said it would get back at Israel because it was responsible for setting off pagers across Lebanon on Tuesday, which killed at least 12 people, including two children, and hurt nearly 3,000 others.

When asked about the blasts, Israel has refused to answer.

When asked about the explosions, Blinken said that the US was still gathering information but that it was not good for anyone for the war to spread.

At a news conference with his Egyptian colleague, Blinken said, “It is very important that everyone avoids doing anything that could make the situation worse.”

But he didn’t say who the US thinks was behind the blasts.

Blinken said that his main goal was to get a ceasefire agreement that would bring peace to all areas, including the northern border between Israel and Lebanon. He also said that all sides had agreed to 15 of the 18 paragraphs of the plan.

Blinken said that making progress meant that people had to wait a long time for texts to be sent back and forth, which gave problems time to happen during the talks.

“We’ve seen that in the intervening time, you might have an event, an incident – something that makes the process more difficult, that threatens to slow it, stop it, derail it – and anything of that nature, by definition, is probably not good in terms of achieving the result that we want, which is the ceasefire,” said Blinken.

He talked about how Hamas killed six Israeli prisoners last month. He didn’t name Israel, which is thought to have gone after members of groups in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran that work with Israel and slowed down the talks.

The Egyptian presidency said in a statement that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi told Blinken that Egypt was against efforts to “escalate the conflict and expand its scope regionally” and that everyone should be responsible.

A State Department official said that Blinken will go from Cairo to Paris on Thursday to meet with the foreign ministers of France, Italy, and Britain. They will talk about the Middle East, Ukraine, and other problems. A source said that Blinken will also meet with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Blinken will not be going to Israel during this trip. This is the first time since Hamas started the war in Gaza almost a year ago that he has skipped a stop in Washington’s closest ally in the area.

Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the State Department, said on Tuesday that this was because Washington wanted to talk about bilateral problems with Egypt during this trip and the plan for a ceasefire in Gaza that the US and mediators have been working on was still not ready to give to Israel.