President Joe Biden is set to get on a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, marking their first conversation since Israel’s targeted killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
President Joe Biden announced on September 29 that he plans to speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The conversation comes amid rising tensions and violence in the Middle East, which Biden emphasized needs to be avoided. “It has to be,” Biden told reporters as he boarded Air Force One for Washington. “We really have to avoid it.”
The precision strike by Israeli Defence Forces in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, on Friday killed Nasrallah. Asked whether an all-out war can be avoided, Biden said, “It has to be.” The US backed the operation, saying that Hassan Nasrallah’s death “is a measure of justice for his many victims.”
In a statement, Biden said, “Hassan Nasrallah and the terrorist group he led, Hezbollah, were responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade reign of terror. His death from an Israeli airstrike is a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis, and Lebanese civilians.”
The statement further said, “The strike that killed Nasrallah took place in the broader context of the conflict that began with Hamas’s massacre on October 7, 2023. Nasrallah, the next day, made the fateful decision to join hands with Hamas and open what he called a “northern front” against Israel.
” Following Nasrallah’s death, Netanyahu issued a warning to Iran’s Ayatollah regime and asserted that those who target Israel will face the consequences and that no location in Iran or the Middle East is beyond Israel’s reach.
He called Nasrallah the “main engine of Iran’s axis of evil” and added, “Nasrallah was not just another terrorist; he was the terrorist. He was the axis of the axis, the main engine of Iran’s axis of evil. He and his people were the architects of the plan to destroy Israel. He was not only operated by Iran, he also frequently operated Iran.”
