Blinken Says Hezbollah Attacks Have Cost Israel Sovereignty in North

Israel “has effectively lost sovereignty” in its north because Hezbollah attacks launched from southern Lebanon have driven much of the population away, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said this week, underscoring the stakes of cross-border attacks that have threatened to ignite a larger regional war alongside the conflict in Gaza.

Mr. Blinken spoke ahead of a trip by a senior White House official, Amos Hochstein, for talks in Paris on how to defuse the escalating border fire between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. Mr. Hochstein, the top White House official for global energy and infrastructure, has become President Biden’s de facto envoy in the quest to resolve the border conflict.

Mr. Hochstein’s plan to meet with French officials was confirmed by a person close to the talks, who spoke on the condition on anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. Lebanon was a French protectorate after the World War I; France still has some influence there and has offered proposals to halt the fighting. The White House had no immediate comment.

U.S. officials have worked for months to prevent a war between Israel and Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and has launched rocket attacks on northern Israel in solidarity with Hamas, the armed group that governed Gaza and started the current war when it attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

Fears of a full-scale, open war between Israel and Hezbollah have grown in recent weeks as exchanges of cross-border fire have intensified. Israeli officials have spoken publicly of shifting their military focus from Hamas to Hezbollah, a far more advanced and potent military threat.

Firas Maksad, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, wrote on X, there was still time for the key players to find a diplomatic solution. Mr. Hochstein ’s trip, he said, would likely happen on Wednesday. “The window for diplomacy is closing but not closed,” he said.