State Department: US doesn’t want to see Lebanon ‘turn into anything like situation in Gaza’

While the US supports the limited ground incursions that the IDF is currently conducting inside Lebanon, it does not want them to extend deeper into Lebanon or for Israel’s presence to turn indefinite as was the case in the past, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller says.

“We are cognizant of the long history of Israel, starting with limited ground operations in Lebanon, turning those into more full-scale ground operations, turning those into occupation, something that we are very clear we are opposed to,” Miller says during a press briefing.

While US officials have gone on record talking about their concern of Israeli “mission creep,” this appears to be one of the first times that one of them has publicly gone into detail regarding what that means.

“We want to see them limit their operations to what we have seen to date… this refers to the amount of land that they are going into in Lebanon, not the number of troops that they’re deploying,” Miller explains.

“Ultimately, we want to get back to implementation of [UN Security Council Resolution] 1701, which means the government of Israel withdrawing back behind the border,” he says.

“We cannot and must not see the situation in Lebanon turn into anything like the situation in Gaza,” Miller later adds.