US reportedly told Israel it backed preemptive strike on Hezbollah, but to be sure to avoid escalation

Israel gave the Americans “considerable” advance notice of its pre-dawn preemptive strike on Hezbollah’s rocket and missile launchers, Channel 2 news reports.

It says the US administration gave its backing to the attack, but warned both before and after it took place that Israel should be careful to avoid escalating the conflict toward all-out war.

The TV report said the message from the US was conveyed in several interactions with Jerusalem and broadly stated: “We support the operation to avert the specific threat, but be careful in your actions; don’t do anything that is likely to lead to a regional war.”

Channel 12 says Jerusalem is now working to try to advance an arrangement that would yield calm on the northern frontier, and is trying to pressure Hezbollah in that regard “via the Americans and others.” The idea, says the report, is “to explain in words, after Israel explained in actions, that it is not in Hezbollah’s interests to escalate or take the region into war.”

It notes that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has spoken to the US’s Lebanon envoy Amos Hochstein three times and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin twice in the past couple of days. And it says “some in Israel” are optimistic about the prospects for a diplomatic solution in the north.

The report notes that both Israel and Hezbollah are claiming to have “won” this round of hostility and appear to be indicating that it is over for now. Nonetheless, it notes, Hezbollah has not indicated that it will cease its months-long, deepening attacks in the north.