The Times of Israel reported on Friday that an American official told the newspaper the government of Israel did not notify the White House prior to a massive strike on the Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, on that day.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Friday that it successfully bombed Hezbollah’s top headquarters in the Lebanese capital, potentially eliminating the head of that organization, Sayyed Nasrallah. Nasrallah’s status is unclear at press time.
“Moments ago, the Israel Defense Forces carried out a precise strike on the Central Headquarters of the Hezbollah terror organization – that served as the epicenter of Hezbollah’s terror,” IDF Spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said. “Israel is doing what every sovereign state in the world would do if they had a terror organization that seeks their destruction on their border.”
Few details about the scale of the strike are available at press time. According to Lebanon’s L’Orient Today, the strikes have leveled at least six residential buildings. Hagari noted in his announcement that Hezbollah – like its similarly Iran-backed allies in Hamas – build terrorist infrastructure in residential communities to use locals as human shields.
Reached for comment on the blasts, an unnamed American official told the Times of Israel that the administration of President Joe Biden was not aware that the IDF would bomb Beirut until the operation had already begun.
“Israel notified the US about the IDF’s major airstrike in Beirut after planes were already in the air and the operation was in motion,” the newspaper reported. “The US did not have any advance knowledge of the strike, says a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity.”
A second anonymous official added that the White House was left to “gather more information” about the matter as it did not receive any prior information from its ally.
The attack on Hezbollah is part of an escalating struggle between the Shiite terrorist organization and the state of Israel that erupted in the aftermath of Hamas’s slaughter of over 1,200 people in an invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023. As a Hamas ally, Hezbollah has been waging war on the north of Israel, displacing tens of thousands of civilians and effectively making it impossible for Israel to control its territory.
The Biden administration has spent the past month pressuring Israel to seek negotiations with Hezbollah, despite the group’s official motto being “Death to Israel” and its repeated explicit calls for the genocidal extermination of Israelis. On Tuesday, Biden again called for negotiations with both Hamas and Hezbollah in his final address to the U.N. General Assembly.
“Full-scale war is not in anyone’s interest. Even as the situation has escalated, a diplomatic solution is still possible,” Biden claimed. “In fact, it remains the only path to lasting security to allow the residents from both countries [Israel and Lebanon] to return to their homes on the border safely. And that’s what working — that’s what we’re working tirelessly to achieve.”
The Israeli government has largely ignored the Biden administration’s attempts to get it to end its self-defense operations against jihadist terror groups. The Biden administration, in turn, has repeatedly admitted in public to not have any information of major attacks, attributed to but not confirmed by Israel, on terrorists in the region.
In July, an explosion in Tehran killed the “political” leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, who had visited Iran to attend the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian. Israel has not confirmed any involvement in the explosion, though multiple reports indicate that the attack was an Israeli operation. The Biden administration responded to the attack by telling reporters it was not informed of the incident in any way.
“This is something we were not aware of or involved in,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters of Haniyeh’s demise. “It’s vitally important to help end the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. It’s vitally important to get the hostages home, including a number of Americans.”
In mid-September, thousands of people were injured in a series of explosions throughout Lebanon apparently targeting Hezbollah leaders. Pagers, walkie-talkies, and other electronics belonging to Hezbollah leaders suddenly exploded, causing nationwide panic. Again, Israel neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the explosions, but widespread reports linked Israel to the explosions, and both Hezbollah and the Lebanese government pointed to Israel as the culprit.
“We are gathering information on this incident,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters shortly after the blasts. “I can tell you that the U.S. was not involved in it, the U.S. was not aware of this incident in advance. And at this point, we are gathering information.”
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