Israeli bombings in Lebanon and Hezbollah rocket launches have crescendoed even as world leaders gathered in New York for the UN General Assembly appealed for calm.
Fighting is also escalating just weeks before the presidential election in the United States, Israel's vital ally.
"The West is trying to guide Israel to some set of steps that will take the heat out of this. That isn't what we've seen... in the last few days," Bronwen Maddox, head of the UK-based Chatham House think tank, told AFPTV.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was on Friday still urging both Israel and Hezbollah -- which has bombarded the state at low intensity for almost a year in support of Hamas in Gaza -- to "stop firing".
"The path to diplomacy may seem difficult to see at this moment, but it is there, and in our judgement, it is necessary," he added.
Washington would "continue to work intensely with all parties" to try and reach a ceasefire, Blinken said.
President Joe Biden's administration has stopped short of taking any concrete steps to force Israel to change tack since the bloody Hamas attack of October 7, 2023 that triggered the state's devastating campaign in Gaza.
America could pressure the Israeli government by "withholding more arms", Maddox said -- although it is for now doing the reverse.
Israel said Thursday it had received a new tranche of US aid worth $8.7 billion.
Beyond arms, "the pressure is pretty strong already, diplomatically" for Israel to ease up, Maddox noted.
But "we're not in the 80s or 90s when a US administration simply had to pick up the phone and get... at least a respectful response from Israel," she added.
- 'Paying for decades' -
With days until the fierce fighting triggered by October 7 is a year old, Benjamin Netanyahu's government appears back in the driving seat.
"Israel has been able to totally turn the terror around. They were on the ropes, traumatised, weakened, their credibility sapped. Today they instil fear again," a high-ranking European military source told AFP.
The source nevertheless added that the feat had been achieved "at an exorbitant price that (Israelis) will be paying for decades" given the scale of the destruction wrought on first Gaza and now Lebanon.
Some members of Netanyahu's coalition, especially on the far right, have definitively distanced themselves from the US.
"Traditionally, the Labour Party held as a maxim that you never get out of step with the US. (Netanyahu's party) Likud isn't built that way," said James Dorsey of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
Dorsey highlighted a "fortress mentality" among the Israeli government that is all the more resilient as the November US presidential election approaches.
"I don't think any country has the kind of grassroots support in the US that Israel has," he said, calling any tightening of the screws on Washington's ally "very unlikely" before the poll.
- Region on verge of 'abyss' -
Israel plans to "get the most out of the money time" until the US election, the European military source said.
"They have no more need of a pretext to act", he added, warning "anything is possible" in the coming days.
Washington is not alone in failing to sway Netanyahu, with Egyptian and Qatari involvement failing to bring home a ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas in Gaza.
And a divided Europe has been unsuccessful in bringing its diplomatic weight to bear for lack of a common position.
EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell acknowledged Friday that Brussels has "put all diplomatic pressure to a ceasefire, but nobody seems to be able to stop Netanyahu, neither in Gaza nor in the West Bank".
Another European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the same is true for Lebanon.
"We're trying. We're throwing our weight behind it," the diplomat said. "But it's very difficult. It's not as if Iran and Hezbollah are being very accommodating."
Fears are growing daily that Israel could send ground troops into Lebanon, with Iran's reaction and the potential consequences for the region unpredictable.
The Middle East is "at the precipice of a full-blown war", Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the UN Security Council on Friday.
His words were echoed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. "Shockwaves radiating from the unprecedented death and destruction in Gaza now threaten to push the entire region into the abyss," he said.
Iran says Hezbollah leader's 'path to continue' despite his killing
Tehran (AFP) Sept 28, 2024 -
Iran's foreign ministry said Saturday the path of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah will continue despite his killing in an Israeli air strike in Beirut, after a year of cross-border clashes between the two sides.
"The glorious path of the leader of the resistance, Hassan Nasrallah, will continue and his sacred goal will be realised in the liberation of Quds (Jerusalem), God willing," foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said in a post on social media X, mourning Nasrallah's death.
Lebanon's Hezbollah group, armed and financed by Iran, on Saturday confirmed Nasrallah had been killed, after Israel said it had "eliminated" him in an air strike a day earlier.
The statement confirmed he was killed with other group members "following the treacherous Zionist strike on the southern suburbs" of Beirut.
Iranian vice president Mohammad Javad Zarif also expressed his condolences, praising Nasrallah as a "symbol of the fight against oppression."
Hezbollah is listed as terrorist group by the United States.
A black flag for mourning was hoisted at the Shiite Islam holy Imam Reza shrine in Iran's northeastern city Mashhad, according to the local Tasnim news agency.
Mourners gathered there, waving yellow Hezbollah banners, along with Iranian flags as they chanted, "Death to Israel," state TV showed.
Lebanon's health ministry gave a preliminary toll of six dead and 91 wounded from the latest strikes on Beirut's densely populated southern suburbs since Friday, the fiercest to hit Hezbollah's stronghold since Israel and the group last went to war in 2006.
Earlier on Saturday, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei condemned what he called an Israeli "massacre" in Lebanon and lambasted the "shortsighted" Israeli policy.
Israel army says Nasrallah's death makes world safer
Jerusalem (AFP) Sept 28, 2024 -
Israel's military said on Saturday that its killing of one its "greatest enemies" Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah made the world safer, while vowing to go after other senior members of his Iran-backed group.
"Nasrallah was one of the greatest enemies of the State of Israel of all time... his elimination makes the world a safer place," military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told a televised briefing.
"We continue, even at this very moment, to strike, eliminate and kill the commanders of the Hezbollah organisation, and we will continue to do so," Hagari said of the Lebanese armed movement, an ally of Palestinian group Hamas.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, in a statement directed to the people of Lebanon, said: "Our war is not with you."
"To our enemies I say: We are strong and determined," Gallant added.
With tensions soaring since the deadly Friday strike on Hezbollah's south Beirut stronghold that killed Nasrallah, Israeli authorities have announced new public safety regulations.
The military's Home Front Command announced that gathering of more than 1,000 people would be banned in central Israel, far from the Lebanese border.
The change is likely to affect weekly demonstrations that have been taking place on Saturdays throughout the war in Tel Aviv, Israel's commercial hub, and other locations.
The anti-government protests have sought to highlight the plight of hostages held in the Gaza Strip since Hamas's October 7 attack that triggered the ongoing war, urging the Israeli government to agree a truce and hostage release deal.
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