US special envoy Amos Hochstein said on Tuesday that his country was working to avoid "a greater war" between Israel and the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia in south Lebanon, as he held talks with top Lebanese officials.
"We have seen an escalation over the last few weeks and what [US] President [Joe] Biden wants to do is to avoid a further escalation to a greater war. That is the effort here," Hochstein told reporters after holding talks with Lebanon's House Speaker Nabih Berri, a close ally of Hezbollah.
"This is a very serious situation that we are in," the US official said. "We believe that there is a pathway diplomatically" to end the conflict, he said.
The US official arrived earlier Tuesday in the Lebanese capital and held talks with Berri and Prime Minister Najib Mikati among others.
"We continue to seek to stop the escalation, restore security and stability, and stop the ongoing violations of Lebanese sovereignty and the acts of systematic killing and destruction committed by Israel," Mikati said in a statement after meeting the US envoy.
First stop in region in Israel
Hochstein visited Israel on Monday. Benny Gantz, an opposition leader, reportedly told Hochstein on Monday that “time is running out” to reach any sort of diplomatic deal to reinstate calm along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.
Gantz stressed to Hochstein that he is committed to “removing the threat Hezbollah poses to the citizens of northern Israel, regardless of developments on the war in Gaza,” his office said.
Several leading UN officials spoke about their concern over the rising tensions on Tuesday.
"The danger of miscalculation leading to a sudden and wider conflict is very real," said UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and head of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Aroldo Lazaro in joint statement.
UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Türk also said he was "extremely worried about the escalating situation between Lebanon and Israel," in comments to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Escalating violence on the border
Since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip in October last year, there have been daily clashes between the Israeli army, Hezbollah and allied groups in the border area between Israel and Lebanon.
Israel wants to use military and diplomatic pressure to ensure that Hezbollah retreats behind the Litani River, 30 kilometres from the border - as stipulated in an important UN resolution on the 2006 conflict.
Hochstein, referring to Biden's May 31 proposal for a Gaza ceasefire, stressed that a ceasefire provides an alternative diplomatic solution which could bring the conflict on the Lebanese-Israel border to an end as well as return displaced people on both sides of the border to their homes.
About 150,000 people have been evacuated or have left the combat zone due to violence which started on the Lebanese-Israeli border on October 8.
According to Israeli information, Hezbollah - which is trained and financed by Iran - has an arsenal of at least 150,000 rockets that could reach targets across Israel.
Coinciding with Hochstein's visit to Lebanon, Hezbollah released a drone video claiming to have filmed an Israeli port.
In a video message, Hezbollah claimed that one of their drones had photographed the port of Haifa and other places in the Kiryat region, a cluster of four small towns on the outskirts of Haifa.
The Israeli army said they were looking into the reports.
