CAIRO: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al Sisi warned America's top general during a meeting on Sunday of the dangers of a major conflict in Lebanon.
US Air Force General C Q Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived in Egypt hours after a significant missile exchange between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah.
In a statement, Sisi's office said the Egyptian leader told Brown that the international community needed to "exert all efforts and intensify pressures to defuse tension and stop the state of escalation that threatens the security and stability of the entire region." "(Sisi warned) in this regard of the dangers of opening a new front in Lebanon, and stressing the need to preserve Lebanon's stability and sovereignty," the statement read.
Brown did not make public remarks during his visit, on which he also met the defence minister and the country's chief of defence.
In remarks prior to arriving in the region on Saturday, Brown said he aimed to discuss ways to avoid any new escalation in tensions that could spiral into a broader conflict.
Brown’s spokesperson said the US general discussed ways "to deter the conflict from broadening" during the meetings. Prior to his Egypt trip, Brown met Jordan's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Maj Gen Yousef Al Huneiti in Amman.
At least 40,405 Palestinians have been killed and 93,468 others injured in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, said the Gaza Health Ministry.
In the last 24-hours, 71 were killed and 112 were injured in what the ministry called three "massacres" by Israel in the strip.
In a statement, Brown's spokesperson said the two military leaders discussed "regional tensions and efforts to deescalate them."
They also discussed "the urgency of bringing the Gaza ceasefire and captives release deal to closure," the statement said.
Negotiators have been meeting in Cairo trying to clinch a still-elusive Gaza ceasefire-for-captives deal between Israel and Palestinian groups.
US President Joe Biden's administration has been seeking to limit the fallout from the war in Gaza between Hamas and Israel, now in its 11th month. The conflict has levelled huge swathes of Gaza, triggered border clashes between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah movement and sparked attacks by Yemenis on Red Sea shipping.
In recent weeks, the US military has been bolstering its forces in the Middle East to guard against major new attacks by Iran or its allies, sending the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group into the region to replace the Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group. — Reuters
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