BI News, Agencies : The American President Joe Biden and his top aides have been urging Israeli leaders against carrying out any major strike against Hezbollah, the powerful militia in Lebanon, that could draw it into the Israel-Hamas war, U.S. and Israeli officials say.
The U.S. officials are concerned that some of the more hawkish members of Israel’s war Cabinet have wanted to take on Hezbollah even as Israel begins a long conflict against Hamas after the Oct. 7 attacks. The Americans are conveying to the Israelis the difficulties of battling both Hamas in the south and a much more powerful Hezbollah force in the north.
U.S. officials believe that Israel would struggle in a two-front war and that such a conflict could draw in both the United States and Iran, the militia’s main supporter.
The effort by top U.S. officials to head off an Israeli offensive on Hezbollah, reported in detail here for the first time, reveals anxieties by the Biden administration over the war planning of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his aides, even as the two governments strive to present a strong united front in public.
U.S. officials want to rein in Hezbollah, too. In numerous meetings across the Middle East, U.S. diplomats have been urging their Arab counterparts to help pass messages to the militia, including via their contacts in Iran, to try to prevent any Israel-Hezbollah war from erupting, whether through actions by the militia group or by the Israelis. U.S. officials feared that Netanyahu might approve a preemptive strike on Hezbollah in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas, which killed more than 1,400 people. Although those fears have receded for now because Netanyahu cooled to the idea, anxieties still persist over two possibilities: an Israeli overreaction to Hezbollah rocket attacks, and harsh Israeli tactics in an expected ground offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip that would compel Hezbollah to enter the war.
U.S. officials have advised Israeli counterparts in meetings this week to take care that their actions in the north against Hezbollah and in the south in Gaza do not give Hezbollah an easy pretext to enter the war. Those sensitive talks took place during Biden’s visit to Tel Aviv on Wednesday and during Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s long negotiations in Israel earlier this week. In both visits, the U.S. officials met with Netanyahu and his war Cabinet, almost unheard of in Israel’s history. They avoided using blunt language to warn the Israelis away from provocative military actions because they understood the vulnerability felt by Israeli officials after the Oct. 7 attacks. But both Biden and Blinken made their concerns clear, said U.S. and Israeli officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly about diplomatic discussions during wartime.
Egypt-Gaza border crossing opens, letting desperately needed aid flow to Palestinians
Rafah (Gaza Strip) : The border crossing between Egypt and Gaza opened on Saturday to let desperately needed aid flow to Palestinians running short of food, medicine and water in the territory that is under an Israeli siege.
More than 200 trucks carrying roughly 3,000 tonnes of aid had been positioned near the crossing for days before heading into Gaza. An Associated Press reporter saw the trucks entering.
Israel blockaded the territory and launched waves of punishing airstrikes following the October 7 rampage by Hamas militants on towns in southern Israel.
Many in Gaza, reduced to eating one meal a day and without enough water to drink, are waiting desperately for the aid. Hospital workers were also in urgent need of medical supplies and fuel for their generators as they treat huge numbers of people wounded in the bombings.
Meanwhile, Israel and Palestinian militants traded fire on Saturday after Hamas released an American woman and her teenage daughter, the first of some 200 captives to be freed after the militant group’s October 7 rampage into Israel.
