Israel has agreed to delay an expected invasion of Gaza for now so that the United States can rush missile defences to the region to protect its troops there, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing U.S. and Israeli officials.

Israel is also taking into account in its planning the effort to supply humanitarian aid to civilians inside Gaza, as well as diplomatic efforts to free hostages held by Hamas militants, the report said.

Threats to U.S. troops were of paramount concern, it said.

The U.S. military and other officials believe their forces will be targeted by militant groups once the invasion of the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory starts.

The United States is hurrying to deploy nearly a dozen air-defence systems to the region, according to the Journal.

Reuters reported on Monday that Washington advised Israel to hold off on a ground assault in the Gaza Strip and is keeping Qatar – a broker with the Palestinian militants – apprised of those talks as its tries to free more hostages and prepare for a possible wider regional war.

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Washington, United States:

The Pentagon plans to send the two Iron Dome missile defense systems it had previously purchased from Israel back to that country to defend itself against inbound missiles, a US official and a congressional aide said.

The Department of Defense told members of Congress at a briefing on Wednesday it planned to lease the Iron Dome systems back to Israel, the US official and the congressional aide told Reuters. In this type of a financial arrangement, the ownership remains with the buyer.

The transfer back to Israel could come within days, the congressional aide said.

The Pentagon had been considering and testing the systems as a way to defend the territory of Guam from Chinese missiles.

The White House on Monday said it expected to fulfill additional security requests from Israel as quickly as possible. Biden promised replenishment of interceptors used by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system as well as ammunition in addition to redoubling the U.S. military presence in the region.

The Pentagon declined to comment.

Iron Dome was developed by state-owned Rafael Advanced Defence Systems with US backing to counter rocket fire from Lebanon that hit Israeli towns during the 2006 war with Hezbollah, and from Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas Islamists took control in 2007. It became operational in 2011.

In August 2022, Israel said Iron Dome interceptor had shot down 97% of Palestinian rockets it had engaged during a weekend surge of Gaza fighting.

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Tel Aviv, Israel:

Palestine’s Hamas “must be stopped”, US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday as he reiterated United States support to Israel after last week’s attack by the Islamist group.

Chuck Schumer led a five-member bipartisan Senate delegation which met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his cabinet, President Isaac Herzog and families of US citizens held captive in the blockaded Gaza Strip.

“We say this to the Israeli people: we have your back, we feel your pain, we ache with you, and we… will stand by you in these difficult times,” Chuck Schumer told a news conference.

He vowed Washington would remain Israel’s “unrelenting partner” and said that in the senators’ meeting with Israeli officials, they discussed Israel’s needs to “defend itself” and “extinguish the threat of Hamas”.

Chuck Schumer condemned the “vicious, horrible, inhuman nastiness of Hamas”, saying “the world can’t move on”.

“If we don’t prevent the threat of Hamas from recurring, it will happen again… They must be stopped,” he added.

More than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel since Hamas group entered Gaza border communities on October 7 and kidnapped at least 155 others, according to Israeli officials.

Israel has pummelled the narrow Palestinian enclave with air strikes and artillery fire, killing at least 2,670 people.

Chuck Schumer said the US Senate would move to prepare an aid package to Israel as the war drags on and reiterated Israel’s “right to defend itself”, and Washington would do “everything it can to get the hostages released”.

Republican Senator Mitt Romney accused Hamas, which rules Gaza, of “holding their own population as human shields”, arguing that any civilian deaths in the Strip are “because of Hamas”.

With hundreds of children among those killed in Gaza, Chuck Schumer said “we have to minimise civilians casualties”.

As Israel seeks to avenge the worst attack in its history, the Arab League and African Union warned earlier Sunday a ground invasion could lead to “genocide”.
 

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