IN AN unprecedented visit to the Middle East as the war rages on between Israel and the Hamas movement that controls Gaza, United States President Joe Biden is trying to avert a regional war that could draw in Lebanon’s Hizbollah and its patron, Iran.

During his trip to Israel and his meeting with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday (Oct 18), coming a day after the visit of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and a day before that of French President Emmanuel Macron to the country, the American president was seeking to assert continuing US support for the Jewish state, including through the supply of arms and diplomatic backing.

President Biden had already ordered the deployment of the USS Dwight D Eisenhower carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean Sea, where it will join the USS Gerald R Ford in a show of support for Israel.