Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah militants, which intensified on Friday with a bombing in Beirut that killed a senior commander of the pro-Iranian Shiite militia and 11 other people, have put the United States and its diplomacy in a delicate position. With just over six weeks to go until its presidential elections, Israel’s main ally is frantically trying to prevent the war in Gaza from spreading to a second hotbed on the border between Israel and southern Lebanon. The White House insists that the “best way” to resolve the conflict is to reach an agreement on a ceasefire and an exchange of hostages in the Strip, although there has still been no progress towards this.
Since the beginning of the war in Gaza almost a year ago, Washington has made it a top priority to prevent a possible spread of the conflict to other parts of the Middle East, especially a military confrontation between Israeli forces and Hezbollah. Such a clash could well end up dragging in the main allies of the two contenders, the United States and Iran, respectively.
The moment of escalating tensions is ominous for the Administration in Washington, in the final stretch for elections that could not be more tied between Democrats and Republicans, and with a president, Joe Biden, who has become what in American political language is known as a lame ducka leader about to leave power and, therefore, with very little room for manoeuvre to tackle crises.
The White House insists that it is making “intense diplomatic efforts” to resolve the crisis. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said: “We continue to believe that a diplomatic solution is the best way forward.” On the possibility that tensions could lead to a new outbreak of war, he believes that “nothing is inevitable.”
President Biden himself wanted to underline the emphasis on diplomatic work. “We are working to ensure that the residents of northern Israel and southern Lebanon can return home. And do so safely. The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, our entire team, are working to achieve this. We will continue to work on it until we achieve this,” he declared at the beginning of a meeting of his Cabinet at the White House.
Kirby, for his part, has insisted that the US government is still trying to present a proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza that would allow for an exchange of hostages, represent a first step towards a definitive end to the war and be acceptable to both the Palestinian Shiite militia Hamas and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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“We continue to believe that there is time and space for a diplomatic solution. We believe that this is the best way forward. War is not inevitable at the Blue Line (which separates Lebanon and Israel) and we will do everything possible to try to prevent it,” the spokesman insisted.
The United States reached a first agreement last November, which was in force for a week. Since then, negotiations in Egypt and Qatar, mediated by those two governments and Washington, have been unable to close a deal. Although the Biden administration systematically blames Hamas for the failure, the US president himself has hinted on occasion that the Israeli prime minister is blocking the end of the war for domestic political reasons. It is not clear at this time whether the ceasefire will be achieved in the immediate future, given that all parties are awaiting the election results in the United States, which will determine whether the next occupant of the White House will be former Republican President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris.
Asked how realistic it was to push for a deal, Biden replied: “If I said it’s not realistic, then just shut it down. There have always been a lot of things that didn’t seem realistic until we got them done. We have to keep pushing.”
Despite relatively optimistic public statements, the US government is deeply concerned about the escalation of tensions. Hezbollah leader, cleric Hassan Nasrallah, has said his group will respond to Israeli attacks with “just punishment.”
Lebanese authorities estimate that at least 37 people have been killed, including two children, and nearly 3,000 have been injured in the attacks that began last Tuesday, when the pagers of hundreds of members of the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah exploded simultaneously. That first wave of attacks coincided with a tour of the Middle East by Secretary of State Antony Blinken. From Cairo, the head of US diplomacy urged on Wednesday “all parties involved” to avoid any step that could “escalate tensions in a conflict that we are trying to resolve.” That same day, another wave of explosions shook the neighborhoods south of Beirut. This time, the devices had been manipulated. walkie-talkies.
A senior Pentagon official told the newspaper The Wall Street Journal The newspaper also quoted a source familiar with the situation as saying that Israeli forces have in recent days moved a division of thousands of soldiers that had been operating in Gaza for months to the north of the country.
Israeli authorities announced Wednesday the start of a new phase in their confrontation with Hezbollah unless the militia withdraws its forces from the border area north of the Litani River and stops firing rockets and mortars at northern Israel, where tens of thousands of residents have been forced to evacuate their homes.
“We are at the beginning of a new phase in the war; we are allocating resources and forces to the northern theater and our mission is clear: to ensure the safe return of the communities in northern Israel to their homes,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant wrote on the social network X on Wednesday. “To achieve this, the security situation must change.”
In the face of rising tensions, the United States on Friday reiterated its call for its citizens to avoid travelling to Lebanon and for those already in the southern part of the country to leave as soon as possible.
