Biden told allies that Netanyahu doesn’t want to end fighting in Lebanon

President Joe Biden told confidantes and allies this week that he did not believe that Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu wanted a halt to hostilities with Hezbollah, expressing increasing frustration as a proposed cease-fire plan fell apart, according to two people familiar with the conversations.

One person who spoke with Biden said the president felt Netanyahu had humiliated both Secretary Antony Blinken and Biden himself with his back-and-forth about a cease-fire proposal with Hezbollah.

Netanyahu at first told U.S. officials he supported a pause in fighting with the Lebanon-based militant group, then roundly rejected the cease-fire proposal once it was made public.

The revelation comes amid intensifying Israeli attacks on Hezbollah, culminating Friday with a strike on the militant group’s headquarters in Beirut. The target of that attack was Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, according to a U.S. official, two Israeli officials and two other people informed of the strike. All were granted anonymity to speak about sensitive internal government conversations.

While it is not clear if Nasrallah was killed or injured in the attack, the strike alone — which came just after Netanyhu delivered a fiery address to the United Nations — dramatically escalates the conflict in Lebanon and could undermine the Biden administration’s effort to clinch a cease-fire and head-off a full-scale war.

In Washington on Friday, senior West Wing officials scrambled to assess the ramifications of the massive Israeli strike, according to the two administration officials. Both were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations.

Aides watched for responses from Hezbollah and, potentially, Iran that could indicate whether the Middle East was barreling toward the outcome that the U.S. had tried to prevent for a year: an all-out regional war.

Escalating fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in recent days has killed nearly 700 people and forced 90,000 to flee their homes in Lebanon. Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said this week that the Israeli military was preparing for a possible ground operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon, telling soldiers that their “military boots will enter enemy territory.”

Biden has long complained in private about Netanyahu for putting his political aims ahead of the will of his people in continuing to brush off U.S.-led peace negotiations to defuse the widening crisis. Many in the West Wing have long been skeptical that Netanyahu wanted a ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza. And now the administration sees an extension of that same approach with Hezbollah.

To Biden aides, Israel’s turnabout on the cease-fire proposal with Hezbollah was just the latest example of the prime minister saying one thing to them in private and then reneging on his word once he received pushback from the far-right elements of his cabinet who controlled his political fate.

The White House declined requests for comment.

If it turns out that Friday’s attack has killed Nasrallah, it would mark one of the most significant Israeli blows against Hezbollah in decades; Nasrallah has led the Iran-backed militant group since 1992, after Israel assassinated its previous leader.

The latest strike could also further heighten tensions between Biden and Netanyahu, the two administration officials said. Time and again, the Biden administration has been surprised by Israel’s brazenness in their attacks amid sensitive cease-fire talks, including the recent detonations of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah operatives that also reportedly killed and wounded civilians.

U.S.-led negotiations on a cease-fire deal in Lebanon have been stuck in recent days on convincing Hezbollah to withdraw 8 to 10 kilometers from Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. Negotiators viewed this as a crucial first step to cementing a proposed 21-day cease-fire, according to two people briefed on the negotiations.

That cease-fire deal has been meant to lay the groundwork for a longer-term peace deal, but the major Israeli airstrike on Friday could entirely upend those efforts. And it does not appear that there was any coordination with the U.S. over the decision to launch the strike.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant “as the operation was already underway,” said Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokesperson. “The United States was not involved in this operation, and we had no advanced warning.”

Those aren’t good signs for the effort to tamp down violence in the region.

“Whether or not Israel was successful in killing Nasrallah today, this will no doubt be a marked escalation in the conflict that will put us beyond the threshold of an all-out war,” said Firas Maksad, an expert on Lebanon at the the Middle East Institute. “It is especially ominous as Israeli ground forces prepare for an apparent invasion of south Lebanon.”

Either way, this airstrike marks the latest in a series of devastating Israeli blows against Hezbollah, which has seen many of its commanders and top operatives killed or wounded in recent weeks amid a stepped-up military offensive. White House aides largely believe Israel will continue the offensive though it is unclear if it will order a ground assault. But one official said it was possible Israel may draw down its campaign if it believes it has sufficiently weakened Hezbollah.

Israel confirmed its strike on Hezbollah’s military headquarters following a defiant speech by Netanyahu at the U.N. General Assembly on Friday.

“As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice, and Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their home safely,” he said, adding that Israel’s military would continue its attacks on Hezbollah “until we meet our objectives.”

Soon after, the prime minister’s office said Netanyahu was returning to Israel Friday evening — cutting short his visit to the United States.