Escalating crisis in Lebanon further endangers Biden’s efforts at preventing wider war

By Kevin Liptak and Kylie Atwood, CNN

Washington (CNN) — The rapidly escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon is further threatening President Joe Biden’s efforts to reduce tension in the Middle East, leaving the president with ever-diminishing options to secure a ceasefire-and-hostage deal that has become his top priority in the final months of his presidency.

As he prepares for his final high-profile speech at the United Nations on Tuesday, the crisis is overshadowing any attempt at burnishing his foreign policy legacy. Without any near-term hopes for a ceasefire in Gaza, Biden is facing new questions about his approach to the nearly year-long conflict.

White House officials watched with concern over the weekend as Israeli warplanes struck targets in Lebanon while Hezbollah fired rockets and drones into northern Israel. As Biden was meeting Asia-Pacific leaders in Delaware, the crisis was unfolding in a different part of the world. The president and his aides were closely monitoring the situation from Wilmington.

Biden’s aides currently view the risk of escalation as serious and real, and have been communicating on a daily basis with officials in Israel, officials said Monday.

“The risk of escalation is real; it has been since October 7. There are moments where it is more acute than others. I think we are in one of those moments where it is more acute,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.

Speaking Sunday, Biden said he was concerned about escalation in the Middle East. But he reaffirmed his view that a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas – which American officials believe would lower temperatures across the region – was still possible.

“We’re going to do everything we can to keep a wider war from breaking out. And we’re still pushing hard,” he told reporters at the White House

His optimism masked fading hopes among administration officials that a deal can be reached before Biden leaves office.

The president and his top national security officials have spent the past year working to prevent the war in Gaza from spreading to a wider regional conflict, with the northern front with Lebanon their chief concern.

Amos Hochstein, a senior White House adviser, has spent the past several months working to prevent a second front from opening in the north, including a trip just last week meant to head off a wider escalation in the long-simmering tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.

Yet there have been no high-level phone calls with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Biden is not currently scheduled to met the Israeli leader when he’s in the United States at the end of this week.

Sullivan told reporters on Saturday that while the risk of escalation was “acute,” there remained avenues to ease tensions.

“We actually believe there is also a distinct avenue to getting to a cessation of hostilities and a durable solution that makes people on both sides of the border feel secure, and we’re going to do everything that we can to bring that about,” he said.

As world leaders gather in New York for the general assembly this week, some US officials are concerned that the global gathering could further enflame mounting tensions in the Middle East, two US officials said.

The concern is concentrated on what countries around the world might say about the conflict while the entire world is watching, even as the US officials have been urging de-escalation for months and have reiterated that call in recent days.

Typically US officials view UNGA as an opportunity to galvanize the world behind a major US push – such as supporting Ukraine in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggressions in recent years – making the anxiety that US officials are feeling this year unique.

US officials are particularly bracing for the possibility of new countries recognizing Palestine as a state. Even if new countries are not added to the effort to recognize Palestine, they are watching for what the countries say that have already made the move earlier this year, such as US allies Norway, Spain and Ireland.

The US will also have eyes on the speech by the leader of the Palestinian Authority, President Mahmoud Abbas, and a possible speech by Netanyahu if he attends the gathering, which is a question that remains in the air.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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