US reportedly set to provide Israel with 2 additional Iron Dome batteries
Report of additional US defense assistance comes after pledge by Biden to expand defense aid, and following several direct rocket impacts on Israeli homes on Thursday
Israel is set to receive two new Iron Dome batteries from the US in the coming days, according to a report Thursday evening.
The Axios report came one day after US President Joe Biden pledged to ask the US Congress for an “unprecedented support package” to bolster Israel’s security forces.
“We are going to keep Iron Dome fully supplied so it can continue standing sentinel over Israeli skies, saving Israeli lives,” he said at the conclusion of his visit to Israel on Wednesday.
Despite Biden confirming that the US will indeed be sending Israel additional defense support, the original Israeli request for Iron Dome batteries was reportedly made earlier in the week, during visits by both US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
According to Axios, an Israeli and a US official have both independently confirmed that the US will be providing Israel with two batteries, which had previously been purchased from Israel by the US.
Since Hamas’s massacre inside Israel on October 7, in which some 1,400 Israelis were murdered and another 200 were taken captive, thousands of rockets have been fired into the country by terror groups, primarily from the Gaza Strip but also from Lebanon, along Israel’s northern border.
A report from Bloomberg on Thursday afternoon noted that as the war with Gaza continues, the Iron Dome risks being stretched to the limit, with its estimated 90-percent interception rate possibly set to drop considerably.
On Thursday afternoon, three civilians were injured by a direct impact after a rocket barrage was fired into the north of the country from Lebanon, and earlier in the day, two rockets fell inside the Gaza border city of Sderot, causing damage to infrastructure but no injuries.
