The US secretary of state Antony Blinken will depart on Thursday for the Middle East, including a stop in Israel, an unnamed senior US official has told the Reuters and Agence France-Presse news agencies on Wednesday.

The official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said U.S. diplomatic envoy Amos Hochstein will also travel to Israel in an effort to calm tensions between the country and Hezbollah.

Blinken leaves Thursday night “for stops in a number of capitals, including Israel,” the official said, but didn’t provide any further details.

It would be the US secretary of state’s fourth crisis trip to the Middle East, the US official told Agence France-Presse.

The trip comes after a suspected Israeli strike killed a top Hamas leader in the suburbs of Beirut, raising fears of a wider conflict. “It is in no one’s interest – not in the interest of any country in the region, not in the interest of any country in the world – to see this conflict escalated any further than it already is,” state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said earlier on Wednesday.

It’s also after almost 100 people were killed and more than 200 wounded in Iran by twin explosions near the grave of a slain Revolutionary Guards general. Tehran is blaming the United States and Israel for the attack but Washington has rejected suggestions of either nation’s involvement.

/The Guardian