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President Biden will send troops to Israel along with an advanced anti-missile system to help bolster the country’s air defense. Biden said the move was meant ‘to defend Israel’ after Iran fired over 180 missiles at the country on October 1. Around 100 American troops will be deployed in Israel to operate the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, which is a critical part of the U.S. military’s layered air defense systems.
The THAAD system is used for anti-ballistic missile defense and could bolster Israel already formidable defense system. The move comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is weighing up an expected retaliation against the Iranian attack but the US has been privately urging Israel to calibrate its response to avoid triggering a broader war in the Middle East.
Biden has publicly voiced his opposition to an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear sites and his concerns about a strike on Iran’s energy infrastructure. Pentagon spokesperson Major General Patrick Ryder described the deployment of Americans as part of ‘the broader adjustments the U.S. military has made in recent months’ to support Israel and defend U.S. personnel from attacks by Iran and Iranian-backed groups.
But a US military deployment to Israel is rare outside of drills, given Israel’s own military capabilities. According to the Department of Defense, America last had boots on the ground in Israel back in 2019 when they carried out training exercises with the same THAAD system.
US troops in recent months have aided Israel’s defense from warships and fighter jets in the Middle East when it came under Iranian attack. But they were based outside of Israel. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi (pictured) warned yesterday that the United States was putting the lives of its troops ‘at risk by deploying them to operate U.S. missile systems in Israel.’
On X, formerly Twitter Araqchi said: ‘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.’ Experts say Iran has sought to avoid a direct war with the United States, making deployment of U.S. forces to Israel another factor in its calculus going forward. Iran launched missiles and drones at Israel in April. Then on October 1, Iran fired more than 180 ballistic missiles at Israel amid another escalation in fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Many were intercepted in flight but some penetrated missile defenses killing one Palestinian in the West Bank and injuring multiple Israelis. US officials did not say how quickly the system would be deployed to Israel. The Pentagon said a THAAD was deployed to southern Israel for drills in 2019, the last and only time it was known to be there.
Lockheed Martin, the biggest U.S. arms maker, builds and integrates the THAAD system, which is designed to shoot down short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. Raytheon, under RTX, builds its advanced radar. The deployment arrives as Israel are urgently investigating how their advance air defense system failed to detect a drone which went on to attack an Israeli military camp killing four and injuring 60.
The Lebanese militant group declared Sunday it launched ‘a squadron of attack drones’ at Israel’s Binyamina military camp where troops from the elite Golani Brigade were stationed, some 30 kilometres south of Haifa city. Such strikes have blighted Israel ever since October 8, 2023, when Hezbollah entered the fight alongside its ally Hamas, but they are typically inconsequential thanks to Israel’s world-class air defense system.
This time, though, it appears one drone went completely undetected, soaring across the border without triggering air raid sirens and slamming into Binyamina camp’s mess hall where dozens of unsuspecting soldiers were chowing down. Now Israeli investigators are tasked with understanding why the Iron Dome – an indispensable part of Israel’s defence network that protects its citizens from low-level, short-range aerial assaults- did not pick up the killer drone, and why air raid sirens failed to alert the Golani Brigade to their impending peril. Hezbollah and Israel have traded fire almost daily in the year since the war in Gaza began, and fighting has escalated since the IDF launched a ground invasion into Lebanon earlier this month.
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