On Saturday, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris issued statements strongly supporting Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, which was carried out using 2,000-pound bombs provided by the United States.

President Biden said in a statement that Nasrallah’s killing was “an act of justice for his many victims, including thousands of American, Israeli, and Lebanese civilians.” The president said the United States “fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself against Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and any other Iranian-backed terrorist groups.”

Biden said he had ordered Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to send additional military assets to the region. “I have directed the Secretary of Defense to strengthen the defensive posture of U.S. military forces in the Middle East to deter aggression and reduce the risk of a broader regional war,” he said.

Biden has claimed to seek de-escalation in the region, but his administration has continued to provide military aid and other support to Israel since it began its dramatic escalation in Lebanon.

Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris, a 2024 Democratic presidential candidate, issued a similar statement, saying that “Hezbollah’s victims have a measure of justice.” The vice president said she has an “unwavering commitment to Israel’s security.”

“I will always support Israel’s right to defend itself against Iran and Iranian-backed terrorist groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis,” Harris added.

Harris also claimed that the administration was working toward a diplomatic solution. But the day before Nasrallah was killed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a U.S.-backed ceasefire proposal, and Israel said it had received $8.7 billion in new military aid from the United States.

An Israeli official told ABC News that Israel decided to kill Nasrallah because he would not separate the situation on the Israeli-Lebanese border from Gaza. Hezbollah has been clear that it will stop its attacks on northern Israel if there is a ceasefire in Gaza.

The Israeli airstrikes that killed Nasrallah destroyed several residential buildings in Beirut. The attack also killed Abbas Nilforoushan, a senior commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Tehran vowed that his death would not go “unanswered.”

Nasrallah’s killing and other Israeli escalations in Lebanon could lead to direct American intervention, as the United States has pledged to defend Israel if it faces a large-scale attack from Iran. American forces in Iraq and Syria could also be attacked by local Shiite militias in retaliation for U.S. support for Nasrallah’s killing and the massacre of civilians in Lebanon.

Israeli airstrikes continued to pound Beirut and other parts of Lebanon on Sunday, with the Lebanese health ministry saying at least 190 people were killed and more than 200 wounded in Israeli airstrikes on Saturday. The ministry said on Sunday that at least 21 people were killed and 47 wounded in Israeli attacks on the Baalbek area in eastern Lebanon.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine announced that 3 of its cadres were killed in the Israeli raid that targeted an apartment in the Cola area of Beirut at dawn on Monday.

Experts in Washington believe, the diplomat stated, that the Israeli leadership believes that continuing military operations will weaken Hezbollah's capabilities and pressure its leadership to accept terms more favorable to Tel Aviv in any future negotiations.

They also believe that Netanyahu is facing great internal pressure due to criticism of his political and military performance, and is trying to avoid internal division by escalating military operations in Lebanon, and that he can use the war in Lebanon to cover up these criticisms and show firmness in dealing with security risks.

While the United States is preoccupied with the upcoming US presidential elections, which will be held on November 5, Israel will seek to exploit this period in which the international system is preoccupied with political transformations, to strengthen its position in the Middle East before the arrival of a new US administration that may impose new visions for foreign policy. Therefore, the threat of a military siege and a ground incursion into Lebanon indicate that Israel is considering more aggressive options to break the capabilities of the Lebanese resistance. The siege may be an attempt to isolate Lebanon from external support, and the ground incursion will aim to control strategic sites or destroy important infrastructure for Hezbollah.