US officials in talks with allies to de-escalate tensions between Israel and Hezbollah

White House principal deputy national security adviser Jon Finer says that Biden administration officials were in talks with allies to help find an off-ramp to the escalating tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.

“We’re working on that in real time right here in New York and in capitals around the world,” Finer says in an appearance at an event hosted by the news site Axios on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

“We’re not going to reveal all the details of those sensitive conversations, but we very much want that conflict to de-escalate.”

Finer sidestepped questions about whether the fighting has already become the all-out war that the US had been pressing Israel to avoid with Lebanon as it continues the nearly yearlong conflict in Gaza. But he underscored that a “big war, a wider war” is in neither Israel’s nor Lebanon’s interest.