EU’s Borrell says Lebanon attacks aimed to ‘spread terror’

The EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemned attacks which targeted mobile communication devices used by Hezbollah this week, saying whoever was behind them aimed "to spread terror in Lebanon". (Reuters/File)
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Updated 19 September 2024
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EU’s Borrell says Lebanon attacks aimed to ‘spread terror’

  • “The indiscriminate method used is unacceptable due to the inevitable and heavy collateral damages among civilians,” Borrell said
  • At least 37 people were killed and more than 3,000 wounded

BEIRUT: The EU foreign policy chief condemned attacks which targeted mobile communication devices used by Hezbollah this week, saying whoever was behind them aimed “to spread terror in Lebanon,” a statement from the EU’s Beirut delegation said on Thursday.
“The indiscriminate method used is unacceptable due to the inevitable and heavy collateral damages among civilians, and the broader consequences for the entire population, including fear and terror, and the collapse of hospitals,” Josep Borrell said.
At least 37 people were killed and more than 3,000 wounded when first pagers, then walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members exploded in two waves of attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Lebanon and Hezbollah say Israel carried out the attack. Israel has not claimed responsibility.
Hezbollah, a heavily armed group backed by Iran, and Israel have been trading fire across the Lebanese-Israeli border for almost a year in a conflict triggered by the Gaza war.


Nineteen Lebanese killed in Israeli airstrike

Updated 9 sec ago
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Nineteen Lebanese killed in Israeli airstrike

  • Strikes follow Hezbollah drone attack that killed four Israeli soldiers on Sunday night in Haifa
  • Israel has killed over 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023 amid protests, outrage

BEIRUT: Israel killed at least 19 people in an airstrike on the Christian-majority town of Aitou in the north of Lebanon on Monday, the Lebanese Red Cross said.

The strike hit Aitou, located between Ehden and Zgharta. Operations across Lebanon also targeted towns in the south and Bekaa.

The building targeted by the strike was three stories high and had been rented five days earlier by a person from the Faqih family, originally from the border town of Aitaroun.

It was rented to house 25 people who had initially fled Aitaroun to the southern town of Srifa and from there moved to Aitou.

The increased intensity of Israeli attacks, along with the rising number of civilian Lebanese casualties, followed a severe blow to the Israeli military on Sunday night.

Hezbollah used a combat drone to target a training camp belonging to the Golani Brigade in Binyamina, south of Haifa, killing at least four soldiers and wounding more than 65 others.

The Israeli government stated that it “will not tolerate the recent strikes in Haifa and Herzliya.”

The attack was “difficult and painful,” said Israeli Army Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, while he inspected the training base on Monday.

The intensity of the Israeli strikes on Monday reached the point where dozens of airstrikes hit 12 towns in the Bekaa region within a few minutes.

The most dangerous was near a convoy of aid trucks bearing Red Cross flags passing through the town of Ain en route to Ras Baalbek.

One driver was injured, and the trucks were damaged due to the strike’s impact.

Caretaker Public Works and Transport Minister Ali Hamieh, who was following up on the convoy, said he was “surprised by the Israeli shelling near a truck bearing Red Cross flags after obtaining UN coverage to deliver the aid.”
Bashir Khadr, governor of Baalbek-Hermel, confirmed that “the trucks continued on their route despite the damages and successfully reached Ras Baalbek. The aid remained undamaged.”

A raid on the town of Sarbin on Sunday resulted in injuries to four Lebanese Red Cross paramedics and damage to two of their vehicles.

Israel said on Monday it captured a man in a Lebanese border town “named Waddah Younis, hailing from the town of Hula in the Marjeyoun district,” believed to be a member of Hezbollah.

Arab News learned that contact was lost with Younis, aged 50, around a week ago following an Israeli ground incursion into the town of Blida.

The party has not issued a statement confirming his capture.

He is the first member of Hezbollah to be taken prisoner in the support war for Gaza that Hezbollah initiated after the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 last year .

The UN Special Coordinator in Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, emphasized that the UN was “doing everything possible to create an opportunity for diplomatic solutions to the current situation” after talks with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.

Hezbollah has authorized Berri to communicate with external parties regarding a ceasefire.

She stated: “It is essential to clarify that Resolution 1701 must be implemented by both parties to achieve a solution.

“The various provisions included in Resolution 1701 must be implemented, and the current situation does not allow for any partial implementation of the resolution.

“The discussion with Speaker Berri focused on the mechanisms for applying Resolution 1701, as we are keen to ensure that history does not repeat itself concerning this resolution.”

She stressed: “We need a ceasefire, as it is difficult to talk during a war.”

The official stated that both the UN and external organizations were coordinating to address humanitarian needs.

On Monday, no incidents of Israeli aggression against UNIFIL forces in the border area were reported.

In a conversation with UNIFIL Commander Gen. Aroldo Lazaro, Berri commended his “wise and courageous stance in maintaining UNIFIL forces at their positions under their assigned tasks.”

According to his media office, Berri affirmed that “this step preserves the integrity of Resolution 1701.”

Hezbollah condemned what it deemed a “violation of the sanctity of Lebanese territory, sovereignty, and laws by the entry of a BBC team into a southern village accompanied by the Israeli army and the publication of reports by the institution.”

In a statement, Hezbollah called for “the necessary legal measures to be taken against BBC and its teams in Lebanon.”

As Israeli forces continued their attempts to penetrate the border area, Israeli artillery targeted a house in the town of Debel, located near the town’s church.

The Israeli military had previously requested that residents evacuate, but the inhabitants insisted on remaining.

This shelling was followed by an airstrike, resulting in injuries to a young girl while a family of five managed to escape unharmed.

Fr. Fadi Falfala, the parish priest, stated: “The residents are staying in their town and have not relocated to any other area.”

Airstrikes on a residence in Khirbet Selm killed two people, while two others died in an attack on a house in the town of Ansar.

Additionally, airstrikes on two homes in the town of Maaroub led to four injuries, two of which were critical.

The Israeli military again employed incendiary phosphorus bombs in its attacks on the south.

It announced that it eliminated “Mohammed Kamel Naeem, the commander of the anti-tank missile system in the Radwan Force affiliated with Hezbollah, through airstrikes targeting Nabatieh.”

The spokesperson for the Israeli military, Avichai Adraee, issued additional evacuation requests for residents in the south, naming 25 towns located north of the Litani River in the Nabatieh region and the Deir El Zahrani area.

Aerial reconnaissance aircraft returned to the skies over Beirut and its southern suburbs after a two-day hiatus, while a cautious calm prevailed in the neighborhoods of the southern suburbs, allowing residents to retrieve their belongings from homes that remain intact.

In the Bekaa, the simultaneous Israeli raids included villages in the Baalbek district, targeting Duris, Bourdai, Safri, Sareen, and Brital.

Hezbollah said it targeted “two gatherings of enemy forces in the Ramot Naftali settlement and the Rweisat Al-Alam site in the occupied Kfarchouba hills.”

It added that it targeted an Israeli force attempting to infiltrate the town of Markaba, and foiled an attempt by a group of soldiers to advance toward the town of Aita Al-Shaab, striking a gathering of soldiers south of Maroun Al-Ras with artillery shells.

Hezbollah said it also targeted “a concentration of Israeli forces in Labouneh and Khillat Wardaeh.”

Hezbollah targeted a rehabilitation and maintenance center south of Haifa, the Stella Maris naval base northwest of Haifa, and the Beit Lid barracks east of Netanya.

The group also attacked the Kiryat Shmona settlement and the Zibdin barracks in the occupied Shebaa Farms of Lebanon.


Israel strikes Lebanon after Netanyahu vows no mercy for Hezbollah

Updated 39 sec ago
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Israel strikes Lebanon after Netanyahu vows no mercy for Hezbollah

  • Hezbollah launched missiles at soldiers and a barrage of rockets at northern Israel

BEIRUT: Israel’s military launched strikes Tuesday on eastern Lebanon, official Lebanese media reported, as Hezbollah fought Israeli soldiers after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed no mercy for the militant group.
The premier’s pledge on Monday came a day after a drone attack by the Iran-backed Lebanese group on an Israeli base killed four soldiers, while volunteer rescuers said another 60 people were wounded.
“We will continue to mercilessly strike Hezbollah in all parts of Lebanon — including Beirut,” Netanyahu said on a visit to the base near Binyamina, south of Haifa.
Hezbollah said its “fighters clashed with” Israeli troops Tuesday who were trying to infiltrate on the outskirts of Rab Tlatin village.
The group also said it launched missiles at soldiers and a barrage of rockets at northern Israel, while the military reported sirens blaring near the border.
Israel’s military, meanwhile, said its “troops eliminated dozens of terrorists in close-quarters combat” and strikes over the past day.
Since Israel last month escalated its bombing in Lebanon before sending ground troops across the frontier, the war has killed at least 1,315 people, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely higher.
Israel launched multiple air strikes early Tuesday in the eastern Bekaa Valley, putting a hospital in Baalbek city out of service, Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported.
The International Committee of the Red Cross’s regional director, Nicolas Von Arx, appealed Monday for the protection of ambulances and other health facilities and personnel, calling attacks on them “deeply worrying.”
Israeli strikes have targeted Hezbollah strongholds as well as other parts of Lebanon, including a northern Christian-majority village where at least 21 people were killed Monday, according to the health ministry.
Anis Abla, civil defense chief in the southern border town of Marjayoun, said rescuers were “exhausted.”
“Our rescue missions are becoming more and more difficult, because the strikes are never-ending and target us,” said Abla.
Fierce battles
Israel says it wants to push back Hezbollah in order to secure its northern boundary and allow tens of thousands of people displaced by rocket fire since last year to return home safely.
In Kfar Kara, a village in northern Israel, restaurant manager Yousef was shaken by the deadly Hezbollah strike on a nearby military base.
“Now they know where that base is, what if next time they fire and are slightly off target?” he said, declining to give his full name for safety reasons.
Hezbollah said it had launched the “squadron of attack drones” in response to Israeli attacks, including one last week that Lebanon’s health ministry said killed at least 22 people in central Beirut.
The group says its strikes are also in support of Palestinian militants Hamas who attacked Israel on October 7 last year, triggering the ongoing war with Israel in the Gaza Strip.
The war in Lebanon has displaced at least 690,000 people, according to verified figures last week from the International Organization for Migration.
Israel faced new criticism over injuries and damage sustained by the UN peacekeeping force which has been deployed in Lebanon since 1978, after a previous Israeli invasion.
The UN Security Council for the first time on Monday expressed “strong concerns” over peacekeepers being wounded.
UNIFIL has refused Netanyahu’s request for peacekeepers to “get out of harm’s way,” with UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix saying the blue helmets will stay in their positions.
War on Gaza
While deploying troops into Lebanon, Israel has kept up its bombardment of Gaza where it has been at war since the Hamas attack on southern Israel.
That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures, including hostages killed in captivity.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed 42,289 people, the majority civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The UN has described the figures as reliable.
At a school-turned-shelter hit by an Israeli strike in the central Nuseirat camp, Fatima Al-Azab said “there is no safety anywhere” in Gaza.
“They are all children, sleeping in the covers, all burned and cut up, all burned,” she said following Sunday’s deadly strike.
In northern Gaza, the Israeli military announced it had effectively laid siege to the Jabalia area as it seeks to rout out Hamas fighters.
“The number of dead is high, and people are under the rubble, missing,” said Muhammad Abu Halima, a 40-year-old Jabalia resident.
Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Jabalia’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, confirmed “a blockade on food, medicine, medical supplies and even fuel.”
The Israeli military said it has “eliminated dozens of terrorists over the past day” in Jabalia.
Despite the violence, elsewhere in Gaza the second round of a polio vaccination campaign for hundreds of thousands of children began on Monday.
Since the Gaza war began Israeli forces or settlers have killed hundreds of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, with two more fatalities Monday in the northern city of Jenin.
Fears of regional war
With the war there and in Lebanon showing no sign of abating, fears of even wider regional conflict have seen Iran, which backs Hezbollah and Hamas, engage in diplomatic efforts with allies and other powers.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met a senior official from Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement in Oman, his latest stop on a regional diplomatic tour.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II warned of “a regional war that will be costly for everyone,” during a meeting with Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Monday.
Israel is still weighing its response to an October 1 missile attack by Iran, launched in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Tehran-aligned militant leaders in the region, along with a general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
A counterattack would only target Iranian military sites, not nuclear or oil facilities, US media reported Monday citing US officials.


Israel’s strike on Ain Al-Hilweh camp stirs up grim memories of Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees

Updated 15 October 2024
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Israel’s strike on Ain Al-Hilweh camp stirs up grim memories of Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees

  • On Oct. 1, an airstrike at the home of an Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades commander leveled four buildings and claimed five lives
  • Since the 1970s, the sprawling refugee camp has been the turf of militant Palestinian factions with a history of violent clashes

LONDON: Israel’s military campaign against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon has not left the country’s largest Palestinian refugee camp, Ain Al-Hilweh, unscathed, dredging up grim memories of previous attacks and convulsions of violence in the nation’s camps.

On Oct. 1, an airstrike, which leveled four buildings and killed at least five people, marked the first time Ain Al-Hilweh had been targeted since October last year when cross-border exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah began.

The strike was reportedly aimed at the home of Munir Al-Maqdah, a commander in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades — a coalition of armed groups associated with Fatah, one of the major Palestinian political parties. Early reports indicated that Al-Maqdah was not home at the time, and his condition and whereabouts remain unknown.

Located 3 km southeast of the coastal city of Sidon, Ain Al-Hilweh occupies approximately 170 acres, or 688,000 square meters. According to UN figures, it is the most densely populated camp in Lebanon, housing more than 55,000 people as of 2023.

Smoke rises following an Israeli air strike on the village of Deir Qanoun. (AFP)


The camp was established by the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1948 to shelter refugees, most of whom escaped northern Palestine after the Nakba — the mass displacement of Palestinians following the Arab-Israeli war.

Since its establishment, Ain Al-Hilweh has frequently been a target of Israeli assaults and a battleground for regional rivalries, including between Palestinian factions.

“In a nutshell, Ain Al-Hilweh is the largest camp with an ongoing battle for its control,” Nadim Shehadi, a Lebanese economist and political adviser, told Arab News.



Jasmin Lilian Diab, director of the Institute for Migration Studies at the Lebanese American University, said Ain Al-Hilweh “has long been a focal point for Palestinian resistance.”

She told Arab News: “The camp has evolved into a symbol of Palestinian resilience and resistance, not only against Israeli occupation but also in the broader struggle for Palestinian rights and self-determination.

“The significance of Ain Al-Hilweh lies in its role as a base for various Palestinian political factions and militant groups, including Fatah and others aligned with different political ideologies and resistance.”

In 1974, Israeli jets bombed seven Palestinian camps and villages in south Lebanon, including Ain Al-Hilweh, which suffered the heaviest bombardment. The bombing came in retaliation for an earlier attack by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine on a school in Maalot, northern Israel.

Less than a decade later, in 1982, during the second invasion of Lebanon, Israel pounded the camp with airstrikes, leaving it almost fully destroyed. The attack took place following an attempt on the life of the Israeli ambassador in London.

Diab said the camp was “a target of Israeli military operations, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, due to its association with the Palestine Liberation Organization and other militant groups that carried out attacks against Israel.

“The camp has also been a staging ground for armed resistance, drawing attention from both Israeli and Lebanese authorities,” she said.

Mourners attend a funeral for the victims of an Israeli airstrike in the Mount Lebanon village of Maaysra. (AFP)


Israel had justified its invasion of Lebanon in the 1980s on the grounds that Palestinian fighters operating near Israel’s northern border needed to be eliminated. However, after conducting its operations in the border region, Israeli troops advanced all the way to Beirut.

In the aftermath of the invasion, Yasser Arafat, the then-leader of the PLO, was forced out of Beirut. Likewise, more than 2,000 Syrian troops pulled out of the capital, having been stationed there since 1976, when President Hafez Assad intervened to prevent the defeat of his Maronite Christian allies in the civil war.

“After the Israeli invasion and the evacuation of Yasser Arafat from Beirut, there was a gradual attempt by pro-Syrian Palestinian factions to take over and get rid of what was left of Fatah and the PLO,” said Shehadi.

“Syria was finishing the job started by Israel of eradicating the PLO and later, it seems that Hezbollah took over that job. The red line between Syria and Israel was at Zahrani just south of Sidon, below which no Syrian presence was tolerated.

INNUMBERS

• 489,292 Registered Palestinian refugees in Lebanon as of 2023.

• 31,400 Palestinians displaced to Lebanon from Syria since 2011.

(Source: UNRWA)

“The War of the Camps was part of the (broader) battle for Syrian control (in Lebanon), leading to pro-Syrian factions gaining control north of Saida (Sidon), while Fatah and the PLO sought refuge in camps south of Saida, mainly in Rashidieh and Burj El-Shemali.”

The War of the Camps, which took place from 1985 to 1988 during the Lebanese civil war, was an extension of the political struggle between Syria and the PLO. Syria and its Lebanese ally, the Amal movement, sought to disarm Palestinian camps to prevent another Israeli invasion.

After Israeli forces began a phased withdrawal from Lebanon in February 1985, Amal took over West Beirut that April. Amal then besieged and later attacked the Palestinian camps in Beirut, including Sabra, Shatila, and Burj El-Barajneh.

Amal, supported by the government of President Assad, demanded that Palestinian camps relinquish their weapons and hand over security responsibilities to its ranks.

In 1986, the conflict in Beirut spilled over into Tyre and Sidon, where Amal also besieged the Palestinian refugee camps of Rashidieh, Mieh Mieh, and Ain Al-Hilweh and cut off aid, including food and medicines.

Seeking to pressure Amal to lift the siege on Rashidieh, Palestinian guerrillas attacked and captured the town of Maghdouche, an Amal stronghold close to Ain Al-Hilweh. The fighting intensified between Amal and Palestinian groups despite international calls for a ceasefire.

Mourners carry pictures of their relative, Hassan Fadel, who was killed on Saturday in an Israeli airstrike. (AP)



“Ain Al-Hilweh plays a crucial role in the complex relationship between Israel, Lebanon, and Palestinian factions, as well as in the broader Arab-Israeli conflict,” said Diab of the Institute for Migration Studies.

“The camp has also been implicated in regional rivalries, with different Palestinian and Islamist groups receiving backing from various state and non-state actors, further complicating its internal politics and drawing in regional powers.

“In this sense, Ain Al-Hilweh represents not only a physical space of resistance but also a microcosm of the larger Palestinian struggle for statehood, refugee rights, and regional geopolitical contestations.”

Notorious for its lawlessness, Ain Al-Hilweh was not only the site of conflicts with external parties but also a frequent hotspot for clashes between the various armed factions within the camp. “Over the years, it has been a point for internal conflicts between these factions,” said Diab.

In 1990, Fatah, then led by Arafat, gained control of the camp after three days of fighting with the Abu Nidal Organization, which had split from Fatah in 1974.



After the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, which engulfed the Yarmouk refugee camp in southern Damascus, thousands of Palestinians fled to Lebanon, many of them cramming into Ain Al-Hilweh.

By March 2014, more than 52,000 Palestinians displaced from Syria had sought shelter in Lebanon, according to UN figures.

With even more armed groups now residing in the camp, violence returned in 2017, when Palestinian factions and a Daesh-affiliated militant group, Fatah Al-Islam, engaged in fierce clashes.

Violence between the camp’s Fatah fighters and extremists broke out again in July 2023 and continued until September of that year, claiming at least 30 lives, leaving hundreds injured, damaging infrastructure, and forcing thousands to flee.

Palestinian officials had said street battles started after an unknown gunman tried to kill an Islamist militia leader, known as Mahmoud Khalil, but instead killed one of his companions.

On July 30, 2023, a top Fatah commander in the Palestinian National Security Forces, Abu Ashraf Al-Armoushi, and three of his companions were reportedly slain by Islamist militants.

As the fighting in the camp intensified and stray bullets hit residential buildings in Sidon, commandos from the Lebanese Army were deployed near the camp’s entrance.

A father and his daughter living in a shelter for displaced families wait to receive food aid from “Carneo”, a local restaurant in Beirut. (Reuters)



Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the clashes and called on “the Palestinian leadership to cooperate with the army to control the security situation and hand over those meddling with security to the Lebanese authorities.”

He also blamed outside forces for their “repeated attempts to use Lebanon” as a battleground for settling scores “at the expense of Lebanon and the Lebanese.”

The violence nevertheless resumed in September, with at least 10 people killed during five days of intense fighting.

Today, as Israel ramps up its assault across Lebanon, residents of the 12 official Palestinian camps in the country fear renewed violence — both from the outside and from within.

Palestinian refugees in Lebanon already experience extreme poverty and face severe restrictions on their movement, employment opportunities, and rights to education and healthcare.

More attacks on the camps, which could trigger fresh bouts of internal turmoil, are likely to worsen their predicament.

 


Netanyahu told US Israel willing to strike Iranian military targets, Washington Post reports

Updated 15 October 2024
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Netanyahu told US Israel willing to strike Iranian military targets, Washington Post reports

WASHINGTON: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told the United States that Israel is willing to strike Iranian military targets and not nuclear or oil ones, the Washington Post reported on Monday, citing two officials familiar with the matter.

 


Sending a THAAD air defense system to Israel adds to strain on US Army forces

Updated 15 October 2024
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Sending a THAAD air defense system to Israel adds to strain on US Army forces

  • “Everybody wants US Army air defense forces,” Gen. Randy George, Army chief of staff, said Monday as he and Wormuth took questions from journalists at the Association of the US Army’s annual conference. “This is our most deployed formation”

WASHINGTON: The deployment of a US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery to Israel and roughly 100 soldiers to operate it will add to already difficult strains on the Army’s air defense forces and potential delays in modernizing its missile defense systems, Army leaders said Monday.
The service’s top two leaders declined to provide details on the deployment ordered by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin over the weekend. But they spoke broadly about their concerns as the demand for THAAD and Patriot missile batteries grows because of the war in Ukraine and the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah and Hamas militants.

A Palestinian man looks on next to the damage at the site of an Israeli strike on tents sheltering displaced people, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, at Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, October 14, 2024. (REUTERS)

“The air defense, artillery community is the most stressed. They have the highest ‘optempo’ really of any part of the Army,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said, using a phrase meaning the pace of operations. “We’re just constantly trying to be as disciplined as we can, and give Secretary Austin the information he needs to accurately assess the strain on the force when he’s considering future operational deployments.”
Wormuth said the Army has to be careful about “what we take on. But of course, in a world this volatile, you know, sometimes we have to do what we have to do.”
The Pentagon announced the THAAD deployment Sunday, saying it was authorized at the direction of President Joe Biden. US officials said the system will be moved from a location in the continental United States to Israel and that it will take a number of days for it and the soldiers to arrive. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of troop movements.

Paramedics with the Lebanese Red Cross transport a body unearthed from the rubble at the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the northern Lebanese village of Aito on October 14, 2024. (AFP)

The move adds to what have been growing tensions within the Defense Department about what weapons the US can afford to send to Ukraine, Israel or elsewhere and the resulting risks to America’s military readiness and its ability to protect the nation.
“Everybody wants US Army air defense forces,” Gen. Randy George, Army chief of staff, said Monday as he and Wormuth took questions from journalists at the Association of the US Army’s annual conference. “This is our most deployed formation.”
The decision to send the THAAD came as Israel is widely believed to be preparing a military response to Iran’s Oct. 1 attack, when it fired roughly 180 missiles into Israel. Israel already has a multilayered air defense system, but a Hezbollah drone attack on an army base Sunday killed four soldiers and severely wounded seven others, underscoring the potential need for greater protection.

A Palestinian boy gestures as people check the destruction following an Israeli army strike around tents for displaced people inside the walls of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on October 14, 2024 amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon have been clashing since Oct. 8, 2023, when the Lebanese militant group began firing rockets over the border in support of its ally Hamas in Gaza. The Sunday drone attack was Hezbollah’s deadliest strike since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon nearly two weeks ago.
Since the THAAD deployment only involves about 100 soldiers, it won’t add a tremendous amount of additional strain on air defense forces, Wormuth said at the conference.
But it adds to the pace of their deployments. Since the frenetic pace of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars has subsided, the military has tried to ensure that service members have sufficient time at home to train and reset between deployments.

The grandmother of Palestinian boy Yaman Al-Zaanin, who was born and killed amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict and lost his life in an Israeli strike on a school-turned shelter, according to medics, reacts while holding his body at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, October 14, 2024. (REUTERS)

Shrinking that so-called dwell time can have an impact on the Army’s ability to keep good soldiers in the force.
“They’re very good, but obviously deploying for a year and coming back for a year and deploying for a year — it’s tough to do for anybody,” George said.
He said the Army is looking at a range of ways to limit the impact on recruiting and retention, including growing the force and modernizing the systems so that it takes fewer soldiers to operate them.
But the repeated deployments makes it difficult to get the systems into the depots where they can be upgraded.
As a result, Wormuth said, Army leaders are trying to make their arguments as clear as possible when combatant commanders go to Austin and ask for another Patriot system in the Middle East or another one for Ukraine.
“We need to be able to bring these units home to be able to go through that modernization process,” she said. “So we’re trying to lay that out for Secretary Austin so that he can weigh those risks — essentially current versus future risks — as he makes recommendations to the president about whether to send the Patriot here or there.”