Blinken urges Israel and Hezbollah to refrain from escalating conflict

(Patria) - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Israeli President Isaac Herzog to urge the country and Lebanese Hezbollah to refrain from escalating the conflict, the State Department announced.

In his conversation with Herzog, Blinken emphasized the importance of preventing conflict escalation and discussed efforts to reach a diplomatic solution so that citizens on both sides of the border can return home.

Israeli leaders are considering how to respond to a rocket attack that killed twelve children on Saturday in the Israeli-occupied part of the Golan Heights.

Israel blamed the attack on the Lebanese pro-Iranian Hezbollah, which denied responsibility.

The US and France have been pressuring for months to reach an agreement through negotiations between the adversarial sides and to prevent the spread of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas in Gaza to avoid a more dangerous regional conflict.

Some residents of Majdal Shams, where a rocket killed 12 children, protested yesterday against the visit of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials who came to express condolences.

Netanyahu laid a wreath, saying he was shocked and that the local Druze community had paid a high price.

When he left the scene of the attack, some residents ran there, threw Netanyahu's wreath, and accused the prime minister of using the tragedy for political purposes.

Relatives and friends of the deceased cried next to the displayed photos of the victims and said they wanted the war to end.