NEW YORK (AP) — The Biden administration has been floating a proposal for a temporary cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah to calm the escalating conflict that has driven tens of thousands of people from their homes in northern Israel and southern Lebanon, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

The United States is working to broker a short-term cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah in the hopes that it could avert a wider war.

The United States and its allies, including several in the Middle East, are calling for a three-week cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah to allow for a diplomatic solution to their fighting.

Blinken has been urging both Israel and Hezbollah to step back from their intensifying conflict, saying that all-out war would be disastrous for the region and that escalation was not the way to get people back to their homes on the Israel-Lebanon border.

Israel and Hezbollah each have strong incentives to heed international calls for a cease-fire that could avert all-out war — but that doesn’t mean they will.

The United States says it will not directly intervene militarily in Israel’s conflict with the Iranian-backed militant group, even as the threat of a wider regional war grows.

Israel on Thursday rejected a push led by its key backer the United States for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon, vowing to keep fighting Hezbollah militants "until victory".

Regardless of a possible ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah militia, the mutual shelling between the two sides was continuing on Thursday. The Israeli army reported that the western part of Galilee in northern Israel had been attacked with 45 missiles from Lebanon.

Israel flatly rejected on Thursday a push led by key backer the United States for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon, as it vowed to keep fighting Hezbollah militants "until victory".

A man reacts while holding a Hezbollah flag during the funeral of people killed after hundreds of paging devices exploded in a deadly wave across Lebanon the previous day, in a south Beirut district.