Vice President Kamala Harris has secured the endorsement of one of the nation's largest Muslim American voter mobilization groups, marking a significant boost to her campaign since many Muslim and Arab American organizations have opted to support third-party candidates or not endorse.

Emgage Action, the political arm of an 18-year-old Muslim American advocacy group, endorsed Harris' presidential campaign on Wednesday, saying in a statement provided first to The Associated Press that the group "recognizes the responsibility to defeat" Donald Trump in November.

The sandy beaches of Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, are empty. Businesses are shutting early, and many restaurants are closed. The only places filling up, as the threat of a wider war with Hezbollah mounts, are public bomb shelters.

Haifa, a seaside city of nearly 300,000 people, is the cultural and economic capital of northern Israel. It has increasingly come into Hezbollah 's sights since fighting with Israel escalated this week and residents are bracing for what many fear will be the worst round of violence since a war nearly two decades ago pounded the city with rockets.

The U.S., France and other allies jointly called Wednesday for an immediate 21-day cease-fire to allow for negotiations in the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that has killed more than 600 people in Lebanon in recent days.

The joint statement, negotiated on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, says the recent fighting is "intolerable and presents an unacceptable risk of a broader regional escalation."

Human Rights Watch said Israel’s ongoing aerial bombardment in Lebanon has put civilians “across the country at grave risk,” and called for a United Nations investigation into strikes in Lebanon and rocket fire by Hezbollah militants into northern Israel.

The global rights group documented over a thousand Israeli strikes across Lebanon since the Israeli military announced a new phase in its conflict with Hezbollah, which has launched over 200 rockets into northern Israeli towns.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is urging both Israel and Hezbollah to step back from their intensifying conflict, saying that an all-out war would be disastrous for the region and its people.

In New York for the annual U.N. General Assembly, Blinken said Wednesday the U.S. was working on a plan to de-escalate tensions and allow tens of thousands of Israelis and Lebanese to return to homes they have had to evacuate in border areas.

The Israeli army chief said Wednesday that the military is preparing for a possible ground operation in Lebanon as Hezbollah hurled dozens of projectiles into Israel, including a missile aimed at Tel Aviv that was the militant group's deepest strike yet.

Addressing troops on the northern border, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said the latest Israeli airstrikes were designed to "prepare the ground for your possible entry and to continue degrading Hezbollah."

The United Nations, the European Union and the World Bank have called for the Palestinian Authority to have a postwar role in Gaza in an administration united with the West Bank.

The three bodies released a postwar recovery strategy Wednesday that provided few details on how the war-ravaged territory would be governed or rebuilt.

After almost a year of trading fire, Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah are now engaged in ferocious confrontations that threaten to turn into a full-blown war.

Israel faces a much more formidable foe in Hezbollah than it faced in Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Many consider the Iran-backed group the strongest paramilitary force in the region — but the group also has political and social wings with considerable power in Lebanon.

By Mireille Rebeiz, Dickinson College

Lebanese families have been fleeing the country's south in the thousands amid escalating tensions and an Israeli bombardment that has so far killed hundreds.

It has been a devastating week for Hezbollah and the people of Lebanon.

Bombs hidden in the group's pagers and walkie-talkies killed dozens of people and wounded thousands — many of them Hezbollah members. Israeli strikes on Beirut killed two of Hezbollah's top commanders. And Israel has bombed what it said were 1,600 militant sites across large parts of Lebanon, killing hundreds of people and displacing thousands.