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Sullivan Expresses Worry Over Escalating Israel-Lebanon Tension, Calls Hezbollah Strike as Justice Served
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Saturday said he was worried about escalation between Israel and Lebanon but that the Israeli killing of a top Hezbollah leader brought justice to the Iran-backed group.
Sullivan, speaking with reporters in Wilmington, Delaware, said he still sees a path to a ceasefire in Gaza but that the US is “not at a point right now where we’re prepared to put something on the table.”
Sullivan said the US is continuing to work with Qatar and Egypt as the two countries talk with Hamas, but that Washington, as it talks with Israel, is not in a position to propose a deal that could be accepted by both parties.
“Could that change over the course of the coming days? It could,” Sullivan said.
Hezbollah overnight said 16 of its members including senior leader Ibrahim Aqil and another top commander, Ahmed Wahbi, were among the 37 people that Lebanon‘s health ministry said were killed in an Israeli airstrike in a Beirut suburb on Friday.
The Israeli airstrike, which the Lebanese health ministry said killed three children and seven women, was the deadliest in its conflict with Hezbollah since Oct. 8, when the group began firing rockets into Israel in sympathy with Palestinians in the nearly year-old Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza.
Sullivan said the Friday strike served justice to Aqil, who was wanted by the US for two 1983 Beirut truck bombings that killed more than 300 people at the American embassy and a US Marines barracks.
“Any time a terrorist who has murdered Americans is brought to justice, we believe that that is a good outcome.”
Sullivan said the risk of further escalation is “acute,” following the Israeli strike as well as the detonation of pagers and walkie-talkies across Lebanon this month that killed at least 39 and injured roughly 3,000. Those attacks were widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.
“While the risk of escalation is real, we actually believe there is also a distinct avenue to getting to a cessation of hostilities and a durable solution that makes people on both sides of the border feel secure,” Sullivan said.
The post Sullivan Expresses Worry Over Escalating Israel-Lebanon Tension, Calls Hezbollah Strike as Justice Served first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Kurdish-led SDF Say Five Members Killed During Attack by Islamic State in Syria
Islamic State slogans painted along the walls of the tunnel was used by Islamic State militants as an underground training camp in the hillside overlooking Mosul, Iraq, March 4, 2017. Photo: via Reuters Connect.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said on Sunday that five of its members had been killed during an attack by Islamic State militants on a checkpoint in eastern Syria’s Deir el-Zor on July 31.
The SDF was the main fighting force allied to the United States in Syria during fighting that defeated Islamic State in 2019 after the group declared a caliphate across swathes of Syria and Iraq.
The Islamic State has been trying to stage a comeback in the Middle East, the West and Asia. Deir el-Zor city was captured by Islamic State in 2014, but the Syrian army retook it in 2017.
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Armed Groups Attack Security Force Personnel in Syria’s Sweida, Killing One, State TV Reports
People ride a motorcycle past a burned-out military vehicle, following deadly clashes between Druze fighters, Sunni Bedouin tribes, and government forces, in Syria’s predominantly Druze city of Sweida, Syria, July 25, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Armed groups attacked personnel from Syria’s internal security forces in Sweida, killing one member and wounding others, and fired shells at several villages in the violence-hit southern province, state-run Ekhbariya TV reported on Sunday.
The report cited a security source as saying the armed groups had violated the ceasefire agreed in the predominantly Druze region, where factional bloodshed killed hundreds of people last month.
Violence in Sweida erupted on July 13 between tribal fighters and Druze factions. Government forces were sent to quell the fighting, but the bloodshed worsened, and Israel carried out strikes on Syrian troops in the name of the Druze.
The Druze are a minority offshoot of Islam with followers in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Sweida province is predominantly Druze but is also home to Sunni tribes, and the communities have had long-standing tensions over land and other resources.
A US-brokered truce ended the fighting, which had raged in Sweida city and surrounding towns for nearly a week. Syria said it would investigate the clashes, setting up a committee to investigate the attacks.
The Sweida bloodshed last month was a major test for interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, after a wave of sectarian violence in March that killed hundreds of Alawite citizens in the coastal region.
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Netanyahu Urges Red Cross to Aid Gaza Hostages
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference, in Jerusalem, May 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/Pool
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he spoke with the International Red Cross’s regional head, Julien Lerisson, and requested his involvement in providing food and medical care to hostages held in Gaza.