Israeli officials informed the US that the country was going to carry out an operation in Lebanon, but did not provide any details.
This is reported by CNN with reference to sources.
According to the channel, the operation was discussed, in particular, during a telephone conversation between US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Israeli counterpart Yoav Galant in the early morning of September 17.
The fact that no details about the operation were released meant that U.S. officials were in the dark until reports emerged some time later of hundreds of pagers exploding, the sources said.
The explosions occurred on Tuesday when US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was flying from Washington to Cairo. CNN notes that this is not the first time that Israel has resorted to "provocative actions" around the same time that Blinken is visiting the Middle East. But it was the action that raised concerns about a regional escalation that the US has long sought to avoid. Blinken stated that the US "did not know about these incidents and was not involved in them."
The US told Iran through a secret channel that it was not involved in the attack and that Iran should not escalate, an unnamed US official told CNN.
Gallant and Austin spoke for the second time on Tuesday after it emerged that thousands of Hezbollah members were injured in a pager blast, but officials declined to elaborate on their conversation.
- On September 17, hundreds of pagers belonging to members of the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah exploded in Lebanon. Because of this, 12 people died, almost 3 thousand were injured. Reuters, citing sources, writes that Israelʼs foreign intelligence service — Mossad —planted explosives in 5 000 pagers imported by the Lebanese Hezbollah group a few months before the explosions.
- On September 18, a repeated series of explosions took place — now walkie-talkies and radio receivers were detonated, 20 people were killed and 450 injured. After that, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant announced that Israel was shifting its main military efforts to the north — a "new phase" of the war was beginning.