US Mideast czar says ‘nobody shedding a tear’ for Hezbollah’s Aqil, but hints at unease
Brett McGurk highlights terror commander Ibrahim Aqil’s role in deadly US Embassy bombing in Beirut in 1983, but acknowledges ‘disagreements with the Israelis on tactics’
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
White House Mideast czar Brett McGurk said the Biden administration is not shedding a tear over Israel’s killing of top Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil, but he indicated that the US might not agree with the move given the risk it brings for regional escalation.
“Ibrahim Aqil, who was killed today, was responsible for the Beirut barracks and embassy bombing 40 years ago. So nobody sheds a tear for him,” McGurk said Friday while addressing the Israeli-American Council’s conference in Washington.
“That said, we have disagreements with the Israelis on tactics and how you kind of measure escalation risk… It is a very concerning situation. I’m very confident that through diplomacy, through deterrence and other means, we’ll work our way out of it,” he added.
“We do not think a war in Lebanon is the way to achieve the objective, to return people to their homes. We also fully stand with Israel in their defense of their people and their territory against Hezbollah,” McGurk continued. “We want a diplomatic settlement to the north. That is the objective, and that’s what we’re working towards.”
WH coordinator for the ME at the @israeliamerican conference on Lebanon:
“We do not think a war in Lebanon is the way to achieve the objective, to return people to their homes. We also fully stand with Israel in their defense of their people and their territory against Hezbollah.… pic.twitter.com/COtwEXTNkq— יונה לייבזון yuna leibzon (@YunaLeibzon) September 20, 2024
The White House and State Department have largely avoided comment on the Hezbollah devices exploding Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 37 people and injuring thousands more, including civilians, in what analysts believe was a highly sophisticated Israeli intelligence operation. Officials have indicated that they were not forewarned about the attacks, which Israel has not claimed and Hezbollah has blamed on Israel.
There has been no publicly acknowledged US contact with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since senior White House official Amos Hochstein visited Israel on Monday to warn against escalation.
And Gaza ceasefire negotiations were at such a delicate point that Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited only Egypt in a trip to the region this week because traveling to Israel in support of a deal might cause Netanyahu to say something that undermines the US-led mediation, US officials said.
Asked if the US still had hope for a deal in Gaza — which the administration calls crucial to calming regional conflict — US President Joe Biden said Friday that he did and his team is pressing for it.
“If I ever said it wasn’t realistic, we might as well leave,” Biden told reporters. “A lot of things don’t look realistic until we get them done. We have to keep at it.”
AP contributed to this report.
