United States President Joe Biden held talks over the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, during which they discussed Israel’s military operations in Lebanon and its potential military response to the Iranian missile attack.
“Today’s phone call between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden was roughly 30 minutes long, was direct and productive and included a discussion regarding Israel’s response to the Iranian missile attack earlier this month,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
“The US and the Israeli government have had discussions since last week after the Iran attack, and so those discussions continued with the president and the prime minister,” Jean-Pierre said, adding that the two leaders have spoken over a dozen times since October 7 and that a full readout will be issued shortly.
The Prime Minister’s Office said earlier that the call lasted about 50 minutes.
Biden has cautioned Israel against attempting to target Iran's nuclear program, which would risk major retaliation, and is also against striking the country's oil installations, which would send world crude prices spiking in the run-up to the US presidential election.
‘Limited ground operations in Lebanon’
According to the US State Department, Israel must avoid taking Gaza-like military action in Lebanon, after Netanyahu threatened the country with destruction similar to what Gaza has faced.
"I'm making it very clear that there should be no kind of military action in Lebanon that looks anything like Gaza and leaves a result anything like Gaza," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told journalists.
While the US supports the limited ground incursions that the Israeli army is currently conducting inside Lebanon, it does not want them to extend deeper into Lebanon or for Israel’s presence to turn indefinite as was the case in the past, Miller said.
“We are cognizant of the long history of Israel, starting with limited ground operations in Lebanon, turning those into more full-scale ground operations, turning those into occupation, something that we are very clear we are opposed to,” Miller said during a press briefing.
While US officials have gone on record talking about their concern about Israeli “mission creep,” this appears to be one of the first times that one of them has publicly detailed what that means.
“We want to see them limit their operations to what we have seen to date… this refers to the amount of land that they are going into in Lebanon, not the number of troops that they’re deploying,” Miller explained.
“Ultimately, we want to get back to the implementation of [UN Security Council Resolution] 1701, which means the government of Israel withdrawing back behind the border,” he added.
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