The US Secretary of State has refused to comment on reports of an Israeli strike in Iran last night.
“I’m not going to speak to these reported events,” Antony Blinken said in Capri.
He added: “All I can say is that for our part, and for the entire G7, our focus has been on de-escalation, on avoiding a larger conflict.
“And, actually, that’s been true since day one after the horrific events of October 7th [when Hamas launched an attack in Israel].”
He added: “A big part of our approach has been to prevent the conflict from spreading to avoid escalation everywhere.
“And that’s a common policy across the G7, and it’s very much our approach now.
“Those efforts will continue.”
US does not support military operation in Rafah – Blinken
The US “cannot support a major military operation in Rafah”, Antony Blinken says.
Taking questions from reporters, the US secretary of state is asked about the Israeli military’s apparent plans to launch an operation in the southern Gaza city.
The idea has been widely condemned by the international community, with more than 1.4 million Palestinians currently living in the city and many of them displaced from other parts of Gaza.
“We believe a major military operation with a large presence of a civilian population would have terrible consequences for the population,” he says.
He adds that getting people out of harms way would be a “monumental task” and the US is yet to see a plan to evacuate them safely.
“We are committed as Israel is to ensuring that Gaza cannot be controlled by Hamas,” he says, adding that the US believes this “can be achieved by other means”.
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