Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew to the Middle East this week with little illusion that his 10th trip to the region since last Oct. 7 would lead to a breakthrough in the Gaza war.

And that was before thousands of near-simultaneous explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to members of the Hezbollah militia spread havoc in Lebanon. On Friday, Israel said it had killed another of the Iran-backed organization’s leaders in a strike that left a dozen people dead, leaving little hope for a cease-fire in Gaza.

For months, Blinken has embodied the Biden administration’s struggle to end the conflict that erupted after Hamas’s assault on Israel last fall: shuttling to the region, pressing both sides and assuring the world a deal is just within reach.

The sheer number of his trips has also inadvertently highlighted the growing pessimism about the prospect of finally concluding a deal.

Instead of narrowing the remaining gaps in the negotiations, Israel, under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has instead engaged in a series of bolder and bolder attacks against its enemies, on top of a campaign in the Gaza Strip that has killed some 41,000 people, according to the health ministry run by Hamas.

“They don’t have any good options, but at some point we need to decide whether it’s time for a new approach that reflects the fact that Netanyahu has a totally different agenda than ours,” said Frank Lowenstein, who served as an envoy for Israel-Palestinian talks under President Barack Obama.

He said the administration’s objectives and talking points seem “increasingly distant from the reality on the ground.”

The constraints confronting Blinken became apparent soon after word came of the attack, in which pagers carried by Hezbollah militants exploded simultaneously across Lebanon, killing a dozen people and wounding thousands, including civilians.

People familiar with the matter said the operation had been planned for more than a year. But the optics of carrying it out while Blinken was in the region and calling for calm highlighted the lack of American leverage over Israel after nearly a year of war.

In the end, there was little Blinken could say. He remained vague when pressed about the matter at a press conference in Cairo alongside Egypt Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, who said any such action must be condemned and “totally rejected.”

“Broadly speaking, we’ve been very clear and we remain very clear about the importance of all parties avoiding any steps that could further escalate the conflict that we’re trying to resolve in Gaza,” Blinken said. As for the possibility of a cease-fire, he said “it’s important to demonstrate that political will to get this agreement concluded.”

Blinken’s 10th trip to the region was a far cry from his first after last year’s devastating attack by Hamas, designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union. That extended effort involved energized U.S. diplomats criss-crossing the region to shore up support for Israel among Gulf Arab states and prevent Israel’s retaliation in Gaza from prompting an all-out Middle East war.

Israel and Hezbollah believe they know how much they can test the other without igniting a wider war, according to a person familiar with the U.S. position on the conflict. Yet attacks like the pager operation are so unprecedented that they fan the risk of a full-blown conflict.

As time has passed, Biden administration officials have argued that they have to keep trying for a cease-fire, even if the prospects seem grim.

Few talk realistically about the original grand ambitions for a broader Middle East peace deal that would have led to normalized relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and the creation of a Palestinian state — an idea Israel’s political establishment has rejected.

This time around, Blinken didn’t even visit Israel.

Privately, American officials have repeatedly criticized Netanyahu’s public comments as unhelpful and politically motivated, with the veteran Israeli politician remaining intent on pursuing his own political priorities and strategic goals in defiance of U.S. requests.

Instead of a truce that could free Israeli hostages, Netanyahu has called for an expansion of the war to deal with Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon while his far-right allies in a wartime cabinet have fanned settler violence in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli military actions against Hezbollah — even if they risk escalation — are necessary to restore a fear of Israeli retalation among its enemies in the region, a deterrence posture that was shattered by the events of Oct. 7, according to a person familiar with Israel’s thinking.

The Jewish state, the person said, simply can’t await an elusive cease-fire in order to secure a diplomatic solution with Lebanon, as the U.S. insists, because the government can’t realistically tolerate the near-daily rocket fire that has displaced roughly 70,000 Israelis from the areas near its northern border for nearly a year.

On Friday, President Joe Biden — whose team has doggedly pursued a cease-fire proposal he announced back in May — reiterated his commitment to negotiate a cease-fire. U.S. officials have said that an accord is roughly 90% complete.

“If I ever say it’s not realistic, the lie is on me,” Biden said at a cabinet meeting. “A lot of things don’t look realistic until we get them done. We have to keep at it.”

That sort of language has drawn a dismissive response from those who argue for a fresh approach, possibly including the sort of pressure on Israel that Biden is unwilling to apply.

The president’s team is “trapped in a reactive, crisis management mode because it remains unwilling to use the force and leverage needed to produce the diplomatic outcomes it says it wants to achieve,” said Brian Katulis, a former U.S. official now at the Middle East Institute. “Darker days are ahead.”

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—With assistance from Jenny Leonard.

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