Dover, September 29: US President Joe Biden said Sunday he would speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and believes that an all-out war in the Middle East must be avoided. “It has to be," Biden told reporters as he boarded Air Force One for Washington. “We really have to avoid it.”

The president's statements come as Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon killed dozens of people on Sunday. He would not say when he planned to speak with Netanyahu. The Hezbollah militant group sustained a string of deadly blows to its command structure, including the killing of its overall leader, Hassan Nasrallah. Israel-Hezbollah War: IDF Says ‘Over Million Israelis Running for Shelter After Lebanon-Based Group Fires Missiles at Haifa, Northern Israel’.

The White House sees the death of Nasrallah as a huge blow to the group. At the same time, the administration has sought to tread carefully as it has tried to contain Israel 's war with Hamas, which, like Hezbollah, is backed by Iran, from exploding into an all-out regional conflict.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)