White House warns against escalation of conflict in Lebanon

White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby affirmed that the United States was not involved in the explosions of electronic devices in Lebanon in the last couple of days. In a White House press briefing on Wednesday, Kirby said, "What I can tell you is we were not involved in yesterday's incidents or today's in any way." He affirmed the need of putting an end to the war and prevent escalation of the conflict in the Middle East region. The US believes that that only way to resolve the crisis is through diplomacy, he said, excluding the possibility of immediate impact of the blasts in Lebanon. Kirby sidestepped questions on whether US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin received a heads up on today's deadly walkie-talkies' explosions in Lebanon during his call with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant yesterday. He also refused to comment on reports that Israel was behind the attacks in Lebanon which left scored of casualties. The Lebanese Ministry of Health reported 14 more deaths and 45 0 injuries from on walkie-talkies' explosions, which followed yesterday's blasts of pager devices and took the total number of victims to 26 dead and more than 3,000 injured. Source: Kuwait News Agency