U.S. troops are being deployed to the Middle East after Israel escalated its war with Lebanon on Monday.
Israel launched massive attacks aimed at Hezbollah on Monday, killing at least 558 people, including 50 children and 94 women. Hezbollah responded by targeting Israeli airbases with missiles of their own.
There are also reports that Israel is dropping leaflets into Lebanon with scannable barcodes. Hezbollah is warning that those codes will allow Israel to track all information on any given device. After Israel targeted mobile devices last week, turning them into personal bombs, one would be prudent to avoid scanning any such thing!
President Biden today spoke at the United Nations and promoted his own peace accords between Israel and Gaza. That peace plan has been rejected by Hamas because it allows Israel the right to control Gaza at any time after a hostage exchange. The President also said that Palestinians should have “a state of their own.” Is the U.S. there to support that? It is unclear.
Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said, “In light of increased tension in the Middle East and out of an abundance of caution, we are sending a small number of additional US military personnel forward to augment our forces that are already in the region.”
Ryder wouldn’t say how many troops the US would send to the region. “But for operational security reasons, I’m not going to comment on or provide specifics,” he said. There are currently about 40,000 US military personnel across the Middle East.
