Growing Fear of War Follows 2 Days of Device Blasts in Lebanon

Two waves of device explosions in Lebanon over consecutive days have led to fears of an escalation to war in the Middle East. In Cairo, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed his frustration that the detonations of thousands of Hezbollah members’ pagers would derail efforts to broker a cease-fire between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Israel—widely believed to have engineered the explosive pagers and walkie-talkies, although it has not commented about the incidents—was pushing the Middle East to the brink of regional conflict. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said there is “a serious risk of a dramatic escalation in Lebanon. Everything must be done to avoid that escalation.”...