WASHINGTON (CN) — The Biden administration spent Friday sidestepping questions about potential escalations in the Middle East after a reported Israeli retaliatory strike on Iran.
Officials were notably reticent when asked multiple questions about Thursday’s reported strike.
“We do not have any comment on the reports at this time,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday. “I’m not going to speak or speculate about any of the reports that are out there.”
Thursday’s reported strikes are the latest sign of growing tension throughout the region and a display of Washington’s inability to keep Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip from cascading into a broader conflict.
Asked repeatedly at the G-7 meetings in Italy, Secretary of State Antony Blinken would only say that “the United States has not been involved in any offensive operations.”
The Middle East’s political landscape has rapidly deteriorated since Oct. 7, when Hamas militants entered Israel before killing nearly 1,200 people and taking at least 240 hostages. Hamas has governed the Gaza Strip since 2006.
Since then, Israel has launched a brutal invasion of Gaza, killing more than 30,000 people to date.
Despite Washington’s best efforts, the conflict has spilled over, including with attacks by Yemen's Houthis on shipping in the Red Sea, rocket attacks on U.S. and allied facilities in Iraq and Syria and blows between Israel and Lebanon.
The U.S. has carried out attacks on the Houthis in Yemen, as well as retaliatory strikes on Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria. Washington has cast these actions as self-defense measures.
The path to Thursday’s attack started on April 1, when an airstrike on Iran’s embassy compound in Damascus, Syria, that killed several Iranian officers and a top general. The strike is widely presumed to have originated from Israel.
On Saturday, Iran launched hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel in a highly telegraphed move. Israel and its allies shot down almost all of them, with no deaths reported.
Despite pressure from Washington to exercise restraint, Israel vowed to respond with a strike within Iran. That response apparently came Thursday night — although Israel has not taken responsibility and Iran has downplayed the incident.
“We have been very very clear from here from the beginning that we do not want to see this conflict escalate,” Jean-Pierre said Friday.
Meanwhile, Israel’s conduct has placed growing strain on its relationship with the U.S., where officials are increasingly frustrated with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Recently, they’ve tried to hold Israel back from a planned invasion of Rafah, where more than 1.5 million refugees have fled the conflict.
Officials have also decried growing violence in the West Bank, the largest of the occupied Palestinian territories and home to roughly 3 million people.
For years, far-right Israeli settlers have staged attacks on the Palestinians living there in order to seize land. Those attacks have increased since Oct. 7, contributing to instability in the region.
On Friday, the State Department announced additional sanctions on Israelis in the West Bank.
“We are deeply concerned about the escalation of violence in the West Bank in recent days and call on Israel to take all appropriate measures to prevent attacks by violent extremist settlers and hold those responsible accountable,” State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said in a statement. “The United States will not hesitate to take additional steps to promote accountability if necessary.”
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