The U.S. is urging calm as Israel appears to be ramping up its fight.
More than 48 hours have passed since electronic devices — pagers and walkie-talkies — distributed to members of the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hezbollah began exploding en masse, killing at least 37 people and wounding 2,931 others, Lebanese officials said. But the Biden administration has yet to attribute responsibility for the operation or forcefully denounce the collateral damage it caused, which Lebanese authorities say includes the deaths of at least two children.
When asked during a press briefing Thursday whether the act might constitute terrorism, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she wouldn’t weigh in from the podium but acknowledged “obviously children being harmed, people being harmed is difficult to see and not something that we want to see.”
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller also declined to comment on whether the attacks were a legitimate form of warfare, but said that “as a general principle, we do believe it’s a legitimate practice for any country to defend itself by fighting terrorist organizations.”
However, sources tell ABC News the CIA has long been reluctant to use the strategy employed in the operation, which relies on infiltrating supply chains, because of the high risk to innocents.