By Humeyra Pamuk
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Israel has told the United States it is conducting limited ground operations focused on Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon near the border with Israel, the State Department said on Monday.
“This is what they have informed us that they are currently conducting, which are limited operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure near the border,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters.
Asked to confirm they were limited ground operations, he said: “That is our understanding.”
Indications grew on Monday that Israel was on the verge of sending ground troops into Lebanon, two weeks into an assault on the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia that culminated in the assassination of its leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
A U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity told Reuters the positioning of Israeli troops suggested a ground incursion could be imminent.
After two weeks of intensive airstrikes and a string of assassinations of Hezbollah commanders, Israel has suggested ever more strongly that a land invasion is looming.
The Israeli attacks on militant targets in Lebanon are part of a conflict stretching from the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the occupied West Bank to Iranian-backed groups in Yemen and Iraq. The escalation has raised fears that the United States and Iran will be sucked into the conflict.
Miller said that the United States continues to support a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah but added that military pressure can at times enable diplomacy. He cautioned that military pressure can also lead to miscalculation and unintended consequences.
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Simon Lewis and Daphne Psaledakis; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Howard Goller)
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