Biden to address Gaza, Lebanon wars at UN General Assembly

Israel's wars on Gaza and Lebanon will receive a "significant focus" during US President Joe Biden's engagements at this week's UN General Assembly, as he seeks to strengthen his foreign policy legacy with four months left in office.

Biden and his senior officials "will be convening to talk about various aspects of the crisis, and what we can do to stabilise the situation", an official close to Biden told reporters on Tuesday.

"He will address the Middle East, especially this very, very difficult year that we have all gone through," the official said.

"It's an opportunity to talk about what we have achieved and what we still need to do, given a situation that is just heartbreaking where hostages have not been returned, the humanitarian situation in Gaza, and as you know, just such a sensitive issue, such a delicate and dangerous situation between Israel and Lebanon right now," he added.

As efforts falter to impose a Gaza truce and with Israel waging an all-out war against Lebanon, the Pentagon said on Monday it will send a small number of additional troops to the Middle East out of an abundance of caution.

In his meetings, Biden will address "the need to strengthen our systems for providing humanitarian assistance, to end the brutal wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan", the official said.

Biden's presidency has been dominated by foreign policy challenges from Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine to the Palestinian Hamas attack in southern Israel and hostage-taking last Oct. 7 and the resulting Israeli assault on Gaza.

A senior administration official said Biden will address the UN General Assembly at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) will allow him to talk up what he considers major achievements of his time in office and to say the international community should support Ukraine and a diplomatic solution is needed in the Middle East.

Biden is expected to talk about continued and additional support to Ukraine as winter approaches, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday.

"President Zelenskiy can rest assured that he'll continue to have the United States' support," Kirby told ABC News.

His UN speech will be the centrepiece event of a two-day visit to New York that includes a climate speech later on Tuesday and a meeting on Wednesday with To Lam, the president of Vietnam.

Biden has been eager to deepen relations with the strategic Southeast Asian country and manufacturing hub to counter Russia and China, with which Vietnam also retains ties.

Ukraine and Russia, Gaza, Iran and China all figure to linger on as challenges for the next president, whether Biden's successor is his vice president, Kamala Harris, a Democrat, or former President Donald Trump, a Republican.

Harris's approach to foreign policy is much like Biden's, although she has struck a tougher tone on the tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths and the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip devastated by a nearly year-long Israeli assault.

Trump, professing more isolationist tendencies, has little enthusiasm for supporting Ukraine's battle to expel Russian invaders and is a firm backer of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has frayed relations with Biden.

Biden has expressed steadfast support for Israel in its drive to eliminate Hamas fighters from Gaza but so far has been unsuccessful in his bid to negotiate a ceasefire-for-hostages deal and no breakthrough is in sight.

Agencies contributed to this report.