Both Blinken and Nasrallah offer signals against a wider war

Julia Norman, an associate professor of politics and international relations at University College London, has said that both U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah -- two actors who “are going to be very influential on how the conflict moves from this point” -- have both offered signals Friday against a wider war.

“That’s not to say it won’t, but the messaging today from both seemed to be ... trying to operate within a sense of restraint and to not have this ripple out even further,” she said.

Nasrallah voiced his remarks, the first since the Israel-Hamas war began, during a Hezbollah ceremony commemorating the around 50 Hezbollah fighters who have been killed in clashes with Israel in south Lebanon since October 8.

Blinken meanwhile made statements in Israel where he is visiting for the third time since the war's eruption.