WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – The United States is sending an advanced anti-missile system to the Zionist regime, the Pentagon has announced, as President Joe Biden’s administration continues to provide “ironclad” support for one of its top allies amid the regime’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and Lebanon.
The U.S. Department of Defense said that Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin had authorized the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) “battery and associated crew of U.S. military personnel to Israel” to help boost the regime.
The announcement comes less than two weeks after Iran fired a barrage of retaliatory missiles at the Israeli-occupied territories on October 1 in retaliation for the assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders and an Iranian general.
The regime’s leaders, including prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have vowed to retaliate — spurring fears that West Asia could be dragged into an all-out regional war.
Earlier this month, Biden suggested that the occupying regime should refrain from striking Iran’s nuclear facilities or oilfields, but the Zionist regime has repeatedly defied the U.S. president’s public warnings in the past.
It is unclear when exactly the U.S.’s THAAD system will be deployed to the regime. An unnamed U.S. official told CBS News that “around 100 troops” will go to the occupied territories.
While the U.S. has said it favors diplomacy and a de-escalation in the region, critics have noted that Washington offers the Zionist regime unwavering military and diplomatic support.
The U.S. provides the regime with at least $3.8bn in military aid annually, and the Biden administration has authorized $14bn in further assistance to its ally since the Israeli military began its war on the Gaza Strip in October of last year.
The regime also recently expanded its bombing campaign in Lebanon, after exchanging fire with Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah across the Lebanon border for months.
Yet despite growing concerns over a widening war, the Biden administration has rebuffed calls to suspend weapons transfers to Israel to pressure the regime to end the wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, said “there is no doubt” that Washington’s THAAD system announcement on Sunday would further escalate regional tensions.
“I am not sure if President Biden is sleep-walking his way into another regional war … or [if] he has his eyes wide open as he escalates the war,” Bishara said.
The occupying regime already uses three integrated missile systems to intercept incoming rockets and missiles fired towards the regime.
But the THAAD system that the U.S. will deploy to Israel has a greater range than other systems and marks a “step up”, Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna reported from Washington, DC.