Israel has told the U.S. it is planning ground operations inside Lebanon, State Department spokesperson Matt Miller told reporters on Monday.

Miller cast the Israeli incursion as short of an invasion, saying the U.S. believes it will be limited and focused on infrastructure belonging to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. But U.S. officials similarly believed Israels campaign in Gaza against the Palestinian militant group Hamas would be relatively constrained as they started funneling support to it last year.

Further escalation inside Lebanon, regardless of scope, would endanger millions of lives and put the Middle East and the U.S. in an incredibly precarious situation. With no end in sight to the war that started on Oct. 7, 2023, when Palestinian militants invaded Israel and Israel began pummeling the Palestinian territory of Gaza in response, a second major front would be open, risking a spiral of bloodshed that could implicate the U.S. in war crimes, expand into all-out regional conflict, and prove as hard to end through diplomacy as the devastating fighting in Gaza.

Despite the likelihood of further violence, one course of action from President Joe Biden is extremely unlikely, sources told HuffPost: an American veto on Israels actions.

Within Israel, there is still a debate over whether a full invasion makes strategic sense, analysts say. As the countrys chief military and diplomatic backer, the U.S. is the only party that could pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to prioritize reaching a deal with Israels foe in Lebanon: the armed group Hezbollah, which was led by Hassan Nasrallah until Friday, when he was assassinated by Israel.

Yet Biden is currently not expected to use American leverage in that way. His reluctance to wield influence over Netanyahu to cease the war in Gaza has fueled frustration globally and inside his administration; it is widely seen as a key reason a cease-fire there has not yet been reached.

Everyone internally is just shocked at the across-the-board weakness given U.S. sway over Israel, a career U.S. official working on Middle East policy told HuffPost. The official said Washington is permitting a nihilistic regional murder spree.

Some government staff are just stunned and speechless about what weve become. Biden and his crew have taken the region and world to a dark place, the official added.

Another U.S. official familiar with discussions about Lebanon told HuffPost they see the Israeli moves as an invasion.

Asked about the suggestion the ground operation will be limited, the second official responded: It will be big. Everyone who says its going to be limited is a white man who thinks a million dead brown people is limited.

White House spokespeople did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

One route for addressing Israels security concerns in Lebanon is to reach a compromise in which Hezbollah withdraws from the border areas between the two countries and an Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire takes hold. The Lebanese groups heavily armed forces there have inspired fears of an Oct. 7-style assault, pushing tens of thousands of Israelis to flee the north of their country, and Hezbollah has lobbed rockets into Israel for nearly a year to protest the Israeli invasion of Gaza, fueling the increasingly intense Israeli response.

Amos Hochstein, a top Biden administration official, has tried for months to craft such an agreement but has been unsuccessful, in large part because U.S.-led diplomacy has failed to end the war in Gaza, which Hezbollah casts as its chief concern. The State Departments Miller said the administration still seeks a bargain in Lebanon and believes military maneuvers could make that more likely.

There is a short window of opportunity for a cease-fire deal to be negotiated over the Israel-Lebanon border but that will require a heavy diplomatic lift by the U.S. president, said Randa Slim, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute think tank.

It is unlikely that we will see that materialize in the waning days of this administration. Moreover, if Israel were to decide on a ground invasion of and eventually a re-occupation of parts of south Lebanon, the potential for de-escalation and cessation of hostilities will dissipate, Slim told HuffPost. Israel previously occupied parts of Lebanon from 1982 to 2000.