U.S. Retaliates Against Iran in Syria, Trying to Ward Off More Attacks

 

Israel-Hamas War

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/27/world/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news

U.S. Retaliates Against Iran in Syria, Trying to Ward Off More Attacks

The Biden administration has increased military resources in the region amid fears of a widening war. With the humanitarian crisis spiraling in Gaza, the U.N. General Assembly is set to vote on calling for a cease-fire.

 

Here is the latest on the war.

The United States carried out airstrikes on targets linked to Iran in eastern Syria early Friday, striking facilities used by Iran’s own forces, U.S. officials said, in an effort to ward off more attacks on American forces in the region.

 

The Biden administration has redoubled U.S. military resources in the region to deter Iran and its proxies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq from engaging in a regional war following Hamas’s Oct. 7 surprise attack into southern Israel. The U.S. strikes were in retaliation for nearly daily attacks against U.S. forces over the past 10 days and were an escalation from targeting the militias in Iraq and Syria that Tehran helps to arm, train and equip.

 

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said in a statement that the airstrikes were “narrowly tailored strikes in self-defense,” and that they “do not constitute a shift in our approach to the Israel-Hamas conflict.”

 

Israel’s military said early Friday that it had carried out “targeted raids” into the Gaza Strip over the past day, as the country’s political and military leaders remained divided about how, when and even whether to invade the coastal enclave. A day earlier, the military said it had briefly sent tanks into the northern Gaza Strip to “prepare the battlefield” for the next stage of fighting, without elaborating.

 

The United Nations General Assembly is set to vote Friday on a nonbinding resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire. The humanitarian crisis for Gaza’s population of two million is spiraling under Israeli bombardment, and supplies of fuel, food and water are nearing depletion. On Thursday, the United Nations said its aid agency operating in Gaza had “almost exhausted its fuel reserves and began to significantly reduce its operations.”

 

Here is what else to know:

 

• Vital supplies from aid groups and donor countries were piling up in Egypt with only a trickle allowed through the border crossing into Gaza. The United Nations says 100 trucks a day are needed; as of Thursday morning, 74 had been allowed in over five days. Israel has insisted on thorough inspection of the trucks.
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• A missile injured six people in Taba, Egypt, on the border with Israel, Egyptian state media reported on Friday, citing official sources. The report said that an ambulance building and residential area had been hit and that the location of launch had not been determined.
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• In the Israel-occupied West Bank, Israel’s military said Thursday that it had carried out “an extensive arrest operation” and detained more than 60 Palestinians, including 46 who it said were affiliated with Hamas.
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• The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza has released a list of 6,747 names of people it said had been killed in Israel’s relentless bombardment of the Palestinian territory. President Biden had told reporters that he had “no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.” The Hamas-led raid into Israel killed more than than 1,400 people, mostly civilians.
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• Nineteen U.S. troops based in Iraq and Syria have suffered traumatic brain injuries after rocket and drone attacks from Iran-backed militants last week, the Pentagon said on Thursday.