US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is expected in Israel, where he will try to de-escalate the conflict in the Gaza Strip and avoid its spread in Lebanon, the country where on Monday an Israeli strike killed the military leader of the pro-Shiite Iranian organization Hezbollah, France Presse and Agerpres noted on Monday.

The military official, killed in the village of Herbet Selm, about 10 kilometers from the border with Israel, “played a leading role in directing operations” in southern Lebanon, where cross-border firefights occur almost daily between pro-Iranian Lebanese. movement and the Israeli army.

Rising tensions in the area are fueling concerns about further destabilization of the region as the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip is now in its fourth month.

On Sunday, the US secretary of state, whose country is Israel’s main supporter, warned that the conflict could create “metastases” in the region.

According to some US officials, Blinken wants to prevent Lebanon from entering the war and pressure Israel to enter a less expensive phase of life for the Palestinians.

Israel has vowed to destroy the Hamas movement after an unprecedented attack on Israeli territory on October 7 that killed an estimated 1,140 people, mostly civilians. About 250 people were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip, later 100 of them were released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons.

Qatar, which acted as mediator at the time, continues its efforts to free the hostages still in Gaza.

The Israeli offensive has killed 23,084 people in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas has held power since 2007. According to the UN, the Israeli bombardment has displaced 85 percent of the population of the Gaza Strip and caused a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.

In the past 24 hours, the Israeli army announced strikes on Khan Younes, the main city of the southern Palestinian enclave and the new epicenter of the fighting, killing “10 terrorists who were preparing to launch rockets at Israel.”

Two journalists working for Al Jazeera were killed on Sunday in an Israeli strike on their car, the Qatari television station reported. The third journalist who was in the car, Hazem Rajab, was seriously injured.

Mustafa Turaiya and Hamza Wael Dahdouh were returning after reporting on the scene of the Israeli strike. The latter is the son of Al-Jazeera’s Gaza office chief, Wael Dahdouh, who had already lost his wife and two of his children in late October in an Israeli bombardment.

On Israel’s northern border, the army opened fire on Lebanon again on Monday morning after carrying out airstrikes on two Hezbollah targets overnight.

Clashes in the area intensified after the assassination of Saleh al-Aruri, Hamas’s number 2, in Beirut on Tuesday.