As scores of rockets flew from Lebanon toward northern Israel on Friday, officials with the U.S.and other international leaders urged Hezbollah and Israel to seek diplomatic paths to de-escalate the conflict.About 120 rockets were fired toward Israel by midday on Friday, the Israel Defense Forces told ABC News.
Israel on Thursday struck more than 100 Hezbollah targets within Lebanon, the military said.U.S.officials have this week privately urged their Israeli counterparts to find a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Thursday.
He added that U.S.was committed to the defense of Israel from all terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies.Israeli soldiers carry the flag-draped coffin of reservist Major Nael Fwarsy, 43, killed a day earlier near Israel's northern border with Lebanon, during his funeral in he northern village of Maghar on Sept.
20, 2024.Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images"We will continue to stand by Israel's right to defend itself," Miller said during a press briefing Thursday."But we don't want to see any party escalate this conflict, period."Miller and other U.S.
officials joined a chorus of international officials who were also asking Israel and Hezbollah to step back from a conflict that's at risk of spreading and increasing in intensity.Israel and Hezbollah have for most of the last 11 months fired a near-daily volley of projectiles across the border.MORE: Israel had hand in manufacturing pagers that exploded in Lebanon: SourceThose strikes appeared on Thursday to take on a new urgency, as Israel launched a series of strikes on Hezbollah targets within Lebanon.
The strikes were among the largest in almost a year.And they followed an attack with explosives hidden in pagers and walkie-talkies in both Lebanon and Syria, a deadly surprise attack that Israel was behind, according to a source.A spokesperson for the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon told Reuters ...