The U.S. moved deeper into the Middle East conflict Sunday, announcing that it is sending an advanced missile defense system to Israel and about 100 American troops to operate it, the first time U.S. forces have been deployed in Israel since the Hamas-led attacks a year ago.
President Joe Biden ordered Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to send the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, and its crew to Israel, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement.
The missile system is a ground-based interceptor designed to defend against ballistic missiles. Its deployment comes after Iran launched more than 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on Oct. 1 after an Israeli attack on Beirut killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, with Israel now planning a retaliatory attack on Tehran.
When asked about the decision Sunday, Biden said only that he had ordered the Pentagon to deploy the system “to defend Israel.” He declined to answer follow-up questions.
The U.S. is already Israel’s biggest arms supplier and Ryder said in his statement that the battery would “augment Israel’s integrated air defense system.”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said Israel will hit Iran in a way that will be “lethal, precise and surprising,” but the timing and scope of an Israeli attack is not known.
Meanwhile, Iran said Sunday that it has “no red lines” in defending itself, as the Middle East anxiously awaits Israel’s expected response to Tehran’s missile attacks two weeks ago.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on X, formerly Twitter, “While we have made tremendous efforts in recent days to contain an all-out war in our region, I say it clearly that we have no red lines in defending our people and interests.”
His comments appeared intended to dispel suggestions that Iran would absorb an Israeli strike without a further response, as Tehran did earlier this year when Israel last struck Iran after a volley of Iranian missiles.
The THAAD system is used to shoot down ballistic missiles. It does not have any warheads and is not used to conduct offensive attacks.
Each THAAD truck-mounted battery carries up to eight missiles each. Israel has other antimissile defenses, including its Iron Dome system.
Meanwhile, on the war front, a Hezbollah drone attack in a northern Israeli town injured at least 67 people, authorities said Sunday evening.
The Lebanon-based group said in a statement that it launched a “swarm” of explosive-laden drones on a training camp for Israel’s Golani Brigade, an elite infantry unit, in Binyamina, seriously injuring at least nine people.
Earlier in the day, peacekeepers at a U.N. position in Ramyah said they observed three platoons of Israeli soldiers cross into Lebanon. With peacekeepers in their shelters, the U.N. mission said two Israeli tanks destroyed the position’s main gate and forcibly entered the position.
The tanks left about 45 minutes later after peacekeepers with the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) protested through its liaison with Israel, saying that that the Israeli military presence was putting peacekeepers in danger.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the United Nations on Sunday to move its peacekeepers out of “harm’s way” in southern Lebanon, claiming that Hezbollah militants were using them as “human shields” in the ongoing fighting with Israel.
With five peacekeepers injured in three separate incidents since Thursday, the Israeli leader told U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that “it is time that you take” the U.N. forces “out of Hezbollah strongholds and out of the combat areas. Your refusal to evacuate [U.N.] soldiers makes them hostages in the hands of Hezbollah. It endangers them as well as our soldiers.”
Netanyahu, speaking ahead of a Cabinet meeting, said, “We are sorry for the harm to [the U.N.] soldiers and are doing everything we can to prevent such harm. But the simple and obvious way to ensure that is to just pull them out of the danger zone.”
UNIFIL, however, has refused to move its troops, with a spokesperson saying Saturday, “There was a unanimous decision to stay because it’s important for the U.N. flag to still fly high in this region, and to be able to report to the Security Council.”
Netanyahu said Israel had asked the U.N. to withdraw from positions “up to five kilometers from the Blue Line” separating both countries, but the peacekeepers refused.
That would have included its 29 positions in south Lebanon.
UNIFIL, a mission of about 9,500 troops of various nationalities, was created following Israel’s 1978 invasion of Lebanon. It is currently tasked with monitoring a cease-fire that ended a 33-day war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah.
On Saturday, 40 contributor nations to the U.N. mission said that they “strongly condemn recent attacks” on the peacekeepers.
“Such actions must stop immediately and should be adequately investigated,” said the joint statement, posted on X, by the Polish U.N. mission and signed by nations including leading contributors Indonesia, Italy and India.
Netanyahu said the criticism of Israel was misplaced and should be directed at Hezbollah.
“Instead of criticizing Israel, they should direct their criticism to Hezbollah, which uses UNIFIL as a human shield, just as Hamas in Gaza uses (U.N. Palestinian relief agency workers) as a human shield.”
The current conflict in the Middle East began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing about 250 hostages. Israel says it believes Hamas is still holding 101 hostages, including 35 the military says are dead.
Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 42,200 Palestinians, according to the territory’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.
Hamas has been designated a terror group by the United States, the U.K. and other Western countries.