(Washington) The United States will send “a small number” of additional military personnel to the Middle East in response to rising regional tensions, which are escalating between the Israeli army and the powerful Lebanese Hezbollah, the Pentagon announced on Monday.
The announcement by Washington, Israel’s main supporter, comes at a time of growing fears of a generalized conflict, with the Israeli army carrying out strikes on Monday against Hezbollah in Lebanon, the deadliest in almost a year with more than 270 dead, including 21 children.
“In light of heightened tensions in the Middle East and as a precautionary measure, we are sending a small number of additional U.S. military personnel to augment our existing forces in the region,” Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder told reporters, declining to provide further details for security reasons.
The United States has deployed thousands of troops to the region as well as naval vessels, fighter jets and air defense systems to protect Israel and American forces there.
“It is clear that these retaliatory operations between Israel and (Hezbollah) risk intensifying and degenerating into a larger regional war, hence the importance of resolving the situation through diplomacy,” Mr. Ryder also argued.
As the war front has shifted in recent days to Lebanon, Hezbollah, backed by Iran, has vowed to continue attacking Israel “until the end of the aggression in Gaza,” a Palestinian territory besieged and ravaged by war for nearly a year.
The exchange of fire between Israel and Hezbollah has intensified since the wave of spectacular explosions of the Shiite movement’s transmission devices, attributed to Israel, which left 39 dead and 2,931 injured, according to the Lebanese authorities, on September 17 and 18 across Lebanon.