The US will send additional forces to the Middle East
The US authorities will transfer an additional military contingent to the Middle East amid the escalation of the conflict between Israel and the Lebanese Shiite movement "Hezbollah". This was announced to journalists on September 23 by Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder.
"As a precaution, we are sending a small additional contingent of U.S. military personnel to reinforce our forces already in the region," Reuters quoted him as saying.
The exact size of the deployed forces and their mission Ryder did not announce.
Earlier in the day, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched massive strikes on Hezbollah facilities in Lebanon. This killed at least 100 people and injured more than 400. Another strike was carried out on Beirut. The Israeli General Staff indicated that the country was conducting a pre-emptive operation to destroy Hezbollah's infrastructure.
Before that, on September 17 and 18, two waves of explosions of pagers and other communication devices of members of the Shiite organization took place in Lebanon. It was reported that at least 37 people were killed then, about 3 thousand were injured. The country's authorities and representatives of Hezbollah blamed Israel for the incident.
Then Tel Aviv announced the transfer of forces to the northern front. The IDF began strikes on Hezbollah facilities in Lebanon, in the following days they continued. The movement itself announced a new phase of confrontation with Israel and also launched a number of rocket attacks on its territory.
The situation in the Middle East escalated on the morning of October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian radical movement Hamas subjected Israel's territory to a massive rocket attack from the Gaza Strip, invaded the border areas in the south of the country and took hostages. On the same day, Israel began retaliatory strikes.
