Kirby says Netanyahu is ‘well aware’ Biden does not want to escalate the war

John Kirby, White House national security communications adviser, said Sunday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “well aware” President Biden does not want to escalate the war.

“I would say that the Prime Minister is well aware that the President is not looking for a conflict with Iran, that the President doesn’t want the tensions to escalate anymore, and that the President is doing everything and has since the seventh of October, to try to keep this from becoming a broader regional war,” Kirby said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Kirby made his rounds on several networks on Sunday to discuss Iran’s drone and missile attack on Israel over the weekend. The U.S. helped Israel repel those attacks overnight, but Kirby has emphasized that the U.S. is “not looking for a wider war with Iran.”

Biden spoke with Netanyahu on Saturday to discuss the attack and to congratulate Israel on preventing most of the missiles and drones from entering the country.

Kirby noted that Biden’s move to reposition additional ships and an additional fighter squadron to the region in recent days helped prevent mass destruction in Israel.

“I mean, one of the reasons we were able to help the Israelis knocked down so many of these missiles and drones because the President made decisions in recent days to preposition additional ships in the eastern Mediterranean and an extra fighter squadron in the region that literally had a huge impact on last night … to prevent a greater sense of destruction inside Israel,” he said.