The United States is working to broker a short-term cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah in the hopes that it could avert a wider war and bolster stalled negotiations between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, a U.S. official said on Wednesday.
American diplomats are trying to persuade the two sides to stand down after several days of intense fighting along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, including a wave of fierce airstrikes by Israeli forces that have killed hundreds of people over the past week.
The immediate goal of the new diplomatic effort is to reduce the chance that the deadliest week of fighting between Lebanon and Israel in years will draw the Middle East into a wider conflict that kills many more people and destabilizes the region.
But American officials also hope that stepping back from a war with Hezbollah would put pressure on Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader, to agree to a deal that would end nearly a year of fighting in Gaza and lead to the release of the remaining hostages taken during the Oct. 7 attacks.
The diplomatic effort comes at what American officials describe as a dangerous new moment in the yearlong spiral of violence, with the possibility of a second front along the border with Lebanon that could draw much bigger players. Hezbollah is supported by Iran, which considers the group its most important proxy in the region.
“An all-out war is possible, but I think there’s also the opportunity — we’re still in play to have a settlement that can fundamentally change the whole region,” President Biden said during an appearance Wednesday on ABC’s “The View.”
The president is under intense pressure to avert that broader conflict, and the clock is ticking. There are 117 days left before Mr. Biden leaves office. He and his aides have been searching — so far unsuccessfully — for a negotiated solution to the violence that would help Mr. Biden burnish his legacy on the world stage.
The new push represents the first time since Oct. 7 that the United States has sought to link the two conflicts involving Israel into a single diplomatic effort.
The logic, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic negotiations, is that Hamas has sought to sow regional discord and chaos since the moment of the Oct. 7 attacks by triggering a wider war. As long as Israel is caught in an escalating series of conflicts, officials believe, the leadership of Hamas will not be motivated to reach a deal.
The official said the United States believed that Mr. Sinwar would have less leverage over the situation if the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah stopped and could feel more pressure to agree to a cease-fire deal in Gaza.
The official cautioned that it remained uncertain whether Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, or the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were prepared to agree to a halt in the fighting.
Some Israeli military officials have argued for months for a more aggressive response to Hezbollah’s attacks. On Wednesday, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, the Israeli military chief of staff, hinted that a ground invasion in Lebanon was possible.
“You hear the jets overhead; we have been striking all day,” General Halevi told soldiers along Israel’s border with Lebanon. “This is both to prepare the ground for your possible entry and to continue degrading Hezbollah.”
Mr. Nasrallah pledged support for Hamas after the group killed about 1,200 people in a surprise attack last year in Israel. Hezbollah has repeatedly fired missiles and drones into northern Israel, forcing Israelis to flee their homes near the border.
The American official said it was unclear whether Hezbollah’s leader was willing to accept a cease-fire deal without seeing movement toward a similar deal in Gaza, which could complicate the effort.
The diplomacy is being conducted by the United States, with support from France. It comes a week after pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah fighters exploded across Lebanon, killing dozens of people and injuring thousands in an attack apparently orchestrated by Israel.
Israeli officials have not said Israel was responsible for the remote attacks, in which the communications devices were packed with explosives and remotely detonated. But a dozen current and former defense and intelligence officials who were briefed on the attacks said that Israel used shell companies to get into the supply chain and booby-trap the devices.
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