Israel has postponed its ground operation in the Gaza Strip so that the United States can deploy additional missile defense systems to the Middle East.
This was reported by the American edition of The Wall Street Journal, citing sources.
Why Israel postponed the ground operation
According to the report, the United States plans to transfer about ten missile defense systems to the Middle East to protect its troops in Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
The Israeli authorities, the newspaper writes, agreed to postpone the ground operation in Gaza so that the United States could deploy these systems. The rollout is expected to be completed this week.
It is noted that when making this decision, Israel also took into account the humanitarian aspect and diplomatic efforts to free more hostages in the Gaza Strip, but the main concern was the threat to US troops.
As US administration officials told the WSJ, Washington believes that after Israel launches a ground operation in Gaza, American troops in the Middle East will be attacked by various armed groups.
As reported, more than 20 US military personnel were injured last week as a result of drone attacks on US bases in Syria and Iraq.
In total, from October 17 to 24, US and coalition forces were attacked ten times in Iraq and three times in Syria.
