US and Europe warn Lebanon’s Hezbollah to ease strikes on Israel and back off from wider Mideast war

WASHINGTON — American, European and Arab mediators are pushing to end cross-border attacks between Israel and The Lebanese Hezbollah militants of a spiral into a broader war in the Middle East that the world has been fearing for months.

In Israel, hopes for a ceasefire in the near future remain low conflict with Hamas in Gaza that would calm attacks by Hezbollah and other Iranian-allied militias. With that in mind, U.S. and European officials are warning Hezbollah, which is much stronger than Hamas but is seen as overconfident, about tackling the military power of Israelsay current and former diplomats.

They warn that the group cannot count on the United States or anyone else to stop Israeli leaders if they decide to execute them. combat-ready plans for an offensive in Lebanon. And Hezbollah cannot count on its fighters being able to deal with whatever comes next.

On both sides of the Lebanese border, the escalating attacks between Israel and Hezbollah, one of the region’s best-armed forces, appeared to at least level off in the past week. While daily attacks continue to ravage the border region, the small shift offered hope that would allay the immediate fears that had prompted the U.S. to send an amphibious assault ship carrying an expeditionary force of Marines to the border area. join other warships in the area in the hope of preventing a larger conflict.

It is not clear whether Israel or Hezbollah decided to scale back attacks to prevent an Israeli invasion of Lebanon, said Gerald Feierstein, a former senior U.S. diplomat in the Middle East. Despite the past week of stagnation in hostilities, “it certainly appears that the Israelis are still … preparing to expect that there will be some kind of conflict … a conflict of a very different magnitude,” he said.

The message being conveyed to Hezbollah is: “Don’t think you are as capable as you think you are,” he said.

From the day after Hamas’s attacks on Israel sparked the war in Gaza on October 7, Hezbollah has fired rockets into northern Israel and vowed to continue until a ceasefire occurs. Israel has struck back, with violence forcing tens of thousands of civilians across the border into both countries. The attacks intensified this month after Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander and Hezbollah responded with some of its largest rocket attacks.

UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths used the word ‘apocalyptic’ to describe it a war that could resultBoth Israel and Hezbollah, the dominant force in politically fractured Lebanon, have the power to inflict heavy losses.

“Such a war would be a catastrophe for Lebanon,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during his recent meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant at the Pentagon. “Another war between Israel and Hezbollah could easily become a regional warwith terrible consequences for the Middle East.”

Gallant responded: “We are working closely to reach an agreement, but we also need to discuss preparedness for any possible scenario.”

Analysts expect other Iran-linked militias in the region to respond much more forcefully than they have against Hamas, and some experts warn of ideologically motivated militants flooding into the region to join them. Europeans fear destabilizing refugee flows.

While Iran, that engaged in a political transition shows no sign at home that it wants war now, but it sees Hezbollah as its strategically important partner in the region — much more so than Hamas — and could become involved.

“If it does indeed look like things are going seriously wrong for the Israelis, the US will intervene,” Feierstein said. “I don’t think they see an alternative to that.”

While the US helped Israel a barrage of Iranian missiles and drones In April, the US probably wouldn’t do so well in assisting Israel defense against any wider Hezbollah attacks, said Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is more difficult to fend off the shorter-range missiles that Hezbollah routinely fires across the border, he said.

The Israeli military is stretched thin after a nearly 9-month war in Gaza, and Hezbollah has an estimated arsenal of about 150,000 rockets and projectiles that can strike anywhere in Israel. Israeli leaders, meanwhile, have vowed to unleash Gaza-like destruction on Lebanon if a full-fledged war breaks out.

Senior White House adviser Amos Hochstein, President Joe Biden’s point man on tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, has so far been unable to get the two sides to roll back the attacks.

The French, with ties as Lebanon’s former colonial power, and other Europeans are also mediating, along with the Qatari and Egyptians.

White House officials have blamed Hezbollah for the escalating tensions and said the country supports Israel’s right to defend itself. The Biden administration has also told Israelis that opening a second front is not in their interests. That was a point Gallant made clear during his latest conversations in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Austin, CIA Director William Burns, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Hochstein and others.

“We’re going to continue to help Israel defend itself; that’s not going to change,” said John Kirby, White House national security spokesman. “But in terms of a hypothetical scenario — specifically with respect to the northern border line … — again, we don’t want to see a second front develop, and we want to see if we can’t resolve the tensions there through diplomatic processes.”

However, White House officials have not ruled out the possibility of a second front in the Middle East conflict.

In conversations with Israeli and Lebanese officials and other regional stakeholders, the consensus is that “a major escalation is not in anyone’s interest,” a senior Biden administration official said.

The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly on the White House deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity, criticized the “perceived logic” of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who argued that Israel would see an end to Hezbollah attacks by reaching a ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza.

But the official also acknowledged that an elusive ceasefire in Gaza would go a long way toward easing tensions on the Israel-Lebanon border.

Biden introduced a three-phase deal four weeks ago that would lead to an extended ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, but negotiations between Israel and Hamas appear to have stalled. A senior Biden administration official said Saturday that the U.S. has presented new language to intermediaries in Egypt and Qatar to jump-start negotiations. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an effort that the White House has not yet made public.

Without a ceasefire, there is still hope that discussed Israeli plans to wind down major fighting in the southern city of Rafah and elsewhere in Gaza could prompt Hezbollah to tone down its rocket firing into Israel, Randa Slim said, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.

But without a ceasefire in Gaza, temporary calm on the Lebanon-Israel border is “not enough,” Slim said.

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Associated Press writers Abby Sewell in Beirut, Josef Federman in Jerusalem, and Matthew Lee, Tara Copp, Lolita C. Baldor and Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.