While the world rebuked Israel for assassinating Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran, Washington says it supports Tel Aviv even when it is doing wrong.
Following the assassination of Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, an act of terror most probably carried out by Israel, many countries across the world issued formal statements and rebuked the assassination.
Deciding to take a totally different path from the international community and stand behind Israel no matter what, US President Joe Biden held a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this Thursday and asserted Washington’s full support for Israel. The two discussed joint efforts to protect Israel from an upcoming Iranian retaliation for the killing Haniyeh on its soil. They also touched on the response Hezbollah plans to carry out in retaliation to the brutal Israeli airstrike on Beirut on last Tuesday, as well as the threat from Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement against Israel.
During the phone call that lasted for over an hour, Biden “reaffirmed his commitment to Israel’s security against all threats from Iran, including its proxy terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis,” according to the White House. “The President discussed efforts to support Israel’s defense against threats, including against ballistic missiles and drones, to include new defensive US military deployments,” the White House also noted.
Admitting the fact that Iran is going to attack Israel within days in retaliation for the assassination of Hamas political leader in Tehran, Biden said to Netanyahu that his country “will support Israel to defend and strike back if necessary.”
US will send military equipment to Middle East to support Israel!
One day after the phone call between Biden and Netanyahu, The US secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin said on Friday that the US will move a fighter jet squadron to the Middle East and maintain an aircraft carrier in the region to help defend Israel from possible attacks by Iran and its proxies and safeguard US troops.
Austin also ordered additional ballistic missile defense-capable cruisers and destroyers to the European and Middle East regions and is taking steps to send more land-based ballistic missile defense weapons there.
The Pentagon chief further noted that the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group will be sent to the Middle East to replace the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group, which is in the Gulf of Oman but scheduled to come home later this summer. That decision suggests the Pentagon has decided to keep a carrier consistently in the region as a deterrent against Iran at least until the end of next year.
US says it wasn’t involved in Haniyeh’s death; Iran doesn’t buy it!
On Wednesday, a few hours after Haniyeh was assassinated, the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken held a press conference with White House reporters and said that Washington was not involved in the attack that killed Haniyeh. “This is something we were not aware of or involved in,” he asserted.
Iran’s Intelligence Minister, however, dismissed Blinken’s words and said on Friday that Israel got the US green light to assassinate Ismail Haniyeh. According to Iranian state news agency, IRNA, the statement came in a letter by Esmaeil Khatib to Haniyeh’s family, Hamas and the Palestinian people over the assassination.
