* Israel, US get battle ready for Iran’s proxies

Sopuruchi Onwuka, with agency reports

The HAMAS attack on Israel on October 7 last year and subsequent and Israel’s vehement crackdown on allied terrorist groups have reached a boiling point when both Iran and the United States would now come to direct clash.

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah announced that it fired 140 Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 missiles missiles at a military base deep inside Israel early Sunday following an Israeli airstrike more than a day earlier that killed at least 37 people, including one of the militant group’s senior leaders.

Israel’s emergency medical services also confirmed that a man was lightly wounded by shrapnel from a missile that was intercepted in a village in the lower Galilee.

Local media reported that rockets shot from Lebanon were intercepted in the areas of Haifa and Nazareth. The Israeli military said it monitored the launch of “about ten rockets” from Lebanon, of which most were intercepted.

Hezbollah said it launched a new type of weapon the group had not used before at the Ramat David airbase, southeast of Haifa.

Hezbollah has fought many conflicts with Israel, including a war in 2006, and it has conducted near-daily strikes against Israel to support Hamas militants who attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

The Oracle Today reports that the year long war in the Middle East has razed Gaza Strip and confirmed the death of most Israeli citizens held hostage by in underground catacombs operated by HAMAS. And ensuing war is feared to be spreading like wildfire, drawing in Iran, Hezbollah, Houthi terrorist group and Islamic State in a coalition that has left Israel responding with fervent force.

With Israel under coordinated attack in the Middle East, the United States has activated a dual intervention strategy that deploys strong military protection for its ally while leading relentless diplomatic negotiations that seek an urgent ceasefire.

But diplomatic resolution of the ongoing war appears not in sight with the heightened clashes between Iran’s war proxies and Israel. And with HAMAS, Houthi rebels and Islamic State groups acting out Iran’s promises of death on Israel; tension has continued to escalate on multiple fronts and making all diplomatic efforts at securing a ceasefire fruitless.

Leader of the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, has repeatedly vowed to retaliate against Israel for responding to its various threats and rocket attacks.

Nasrallah did not say how, when or where Hezbollah would retaliate. “I will not speak about time, or form or place,” he said, adding: “This retribution will come.”

After worsening exchanges of fire for rockets across the border with Lebanon, Israeli determined at the weekend that military operation is now needed on Lebanon in order to secure stability for its citizens in the north of the tiny country.

Israeli Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, told US mediator, Amos Hochstein, weekend that the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah has continued to bond with the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement to prolong the conflict

Hezbollah boasted that its large arsenal of rockets would now be deployed to make it impossible for displaced Israeli citizens to return to their homes across the border, a position that makes possibility for an agreement difficult.

“Therefore, the only way left to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes will be via military action,” Gallant told the US mediator.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has earlier told Hochstein, “It will not be possible to return our residents without a fundamental change in the security situation in the north.”

The Oracle Today reports that Israel’s objectives in its ongoing fight with Hezbollah focuses on safe return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes after they evacuated under barrage of rocket fires from Southern Lebanon.

According to reports credited to the Israeli TV channel N12, Hochstein who has been working for months to de-escalate the highly dangerous situation at the border where tens of thousands of Israelis have fled their homes warned of dangerous consequences of a larger war which could further spread to the region.

Netanyahu said that while Israel appreciates and respects the support of the US, it would ultimately “do what is necessary to safeguard its security and return the residents of the north securely to their homes.”

While Iran and Hezbollah have made pledges to punish Israel with avalanche of deaths, the Israeli military is not taking the threats lying down.

Surprises erupted in the war when Hezbollah members were targeted in simultaneous device detonations across Lebanon. The exploding devices killed about 40 people and wounded nearly 3000 people. The detonations involving handheld communication devices including pagers and radios marked a new electronic signature in the ongoing war.

Like in the past takedown of HAMAS and Hezbollah kingpins in Iran and Lebanon, Israel is yet to comment on allegations that it is behind the exploding devices attacks which rocked Lebanon and Syria.

Addressing Israeli troops at the Ramat David airbase in northern Israel, Yoav Gallant said: “We are at the onset of a new phase in the war; it requires courage, determination and perseverance from us.”

Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), Herzl Halevi, said Israel’s war plan is ready to move forward with deployment of more capabilities.

“We have achieved a lot, and we still have further forward to go. We still have many capabilities that we have not yet activated. We saw some of these things here, and it seems to me that the readiness is good and we are preparing these plans going forward,” Mr Halevi said.

“The rule is that every time we work on a certain stage, the next two stages are already ready to advance. At each stage, the price for Hezbollah must be high.”

And despite the global call for restraints, Hezbollah fired 20 rockets at Israel weekend, a development that the IDF confirmed, adding that the 20 rockets were fired at Kiryat Shmona and some of them were intercepted.

Meanwhile the IDF has decided to deploy the elite 98th Division from Gaza to its northern border with Lebanon as Israel prepares for a possible escalation from Hezbollah.

On Thursday, the Israeli military launched a series of airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon which it said were intended to “degrade Hezbollah’s terrorist capabilities and infrastructure.”

Attack helicopter returns a carrier

It also confirmed carrying out airstrikes on suspected Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon’s Majdal Selm.

With Iran stepping into the fray from the rear with promise of attacks on Israel, the United States has also hastened with deployment of warplanes, ships and troops in the Middle East if the conflict expands.

US Pentagon has repeatedly reiterated Washington’s resolve to defend the state of Israel from any aggression from Iran.

The U.S. has kept an increased military presence in the Middle East throughout much of the past year, with about 40,000 forces, at least a dozen warships and four Air Force fighter jet squadrons spread across the region.

The assignment of the troops is to protect allies and to serve as a deterrent against attacks.

“We’re confident in the ability that we have there right now to protect our forces and should we need to come to the defense of Israel as well,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Thursday.

A military official said the additional resources have helped as the U.S. patrols various conflict areas, including operations targeting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, defending Israel and countering threats from Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, who have targeted commercial ships in the Red Sea and launched ballistic missiles at Israel.

That troop level at U.S. Central Command in the Middle East grew in the early months of the Israel-Hamas war to about 40,000 as additional ships and aircraft were sent in.

US floats carriers and destroyers to protect Israel

Several weeks ago, the total spiked to nearly 50,000 when the Pentagon ordered two aircraft carriers and their accompanying warships to stay in the region as tensions roiled between Israel and Lebanon. One carrier strike group has since left and moved into the Asia-Pacific.

Navy warships are scattered across the region, from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf of Oman, and both Air Force and Navy fighter jets are strategically based at several locations to be better prepared to respond to any attacks.

American military commanders have long argued that the presence of a formidable aircraft carrier — with its array of fighter jets and surveillance aircraft and sophisticated missiles — is a strong deterrent against Iran.

The USS Abraham Lincoln and its three destroyers are in the Gulf of Oman, while two U.S. Navy destroyers are in the Red Sea. The USS Georgia guided missile submarine, which Austin ordered to the region last month, had been in the Red Sea and remains in U.S. Central Command, but officials declined to say where.

There are six U.S. warships in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, including the USS Wasp amphibious assault ship with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard. And three Navy destroyers are in that area.

About a half dozen of the F/A-18 fighter jets from the USS Abraham Lincoln have been moved to a land base in the region. Officials declined to say where.

The US Air Force has also sent in an additional squadron of advanced F-22 fighter jets last month, bringing the total number of land-based fighter squadrons in the Middle East to four.

That force also includes a squadron of A-10 Thunderbolt II ground attack aircraft, F-15E Strike Eagles and F-16 fighter jets. The Air Force is not identifying what countries the planes are operating from.

The addition of the F-22 fighter jets gives U.S. forces a hard-to-detect aircraft that has a sophisticated suite of sensors to suppress enemy air defenses and carry out electronic attacks. The F-22 also can act as a “quarterback,” organizing other warplanes in an operation.

But the U.S. also showed in February that it doesn’t have to have planes based in the Middle East to attack targets. In February, a pair of B-1 bombers took off from Dyess Air Force Base in Texas and flew more than 30 hours in a roundtrip mission in which they struck 85 Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force targets in Iraq and Syria in response to an attack by IRGC-backed militias that killed three U.S. service members.