Biden says he’ll speak with Israeli leader, vowing all-out war in the Middle East must be avoided

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. (AP) — President Joe Biden said Sunday he would speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and believes that an all-out war in the Middle East must be avoided.

“It has to be,” Biden told reporters as he boarded Air Force One for Washington. “We really have to avoid it.”

The president’s statements come as Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon killed dozens of people on Sunday. He would not say when he planned to speak with Netanyahu.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah sustained a string of deadly blows to its command structure, including the killing of its overall leader, Hassan Nasrallah, as part of a wave of increasingly brazen Israeli strikes meant to undercut the group’s capacity to attack its territory.

Tens of thousands of Israelis and Lebanese have been forced to evacuate near the Israel-Lebanon border as Hezbollah has launched near-daily rocket volleys at Israel over the past 11 months and Israel has countered with its own strikes.

With tens of thousands of civilians displaced on both sides, the Biden administration has tried to bring about a negotiated resolution that would allow them to return home and prevent a wider regional conflict.

<bsp-list-loadmore data-module="" class=«PageListStandardB» data-gtm-region=«RELATED COVERAGE» data-gtm-topic=«No Value» data-hide-dates=«true» data-show-loadmore=«true» data-parsely-url=«https%3A%2F%2Fapi.parsely.com%2Fv2%2Frelated%3Fapikey%3Dapnews.com%26url%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fapnews.com%2Farticle%2Fbiden-israel-hezbollah-war-af76d9ff367a9ebbc8685628276c484b%26limit%3D9%26respect_empty_results%3D1%26sort%3D_score%26pub_date_start%3D2024-08-15%26exclude%3Dsection%3APress%20Releases%26exclude%3Dtags%3ACelebrity%20Birthdays» data-parsely-title=«Related Stories»