US Strikes Iran-Backed Sites In Syria After Attacks On Its Troops, Warns Of More Action

New Delhi: U.S. President Joe Biden ordered strikes on two facilities in Syria after U.S. troops were attacked more than a dozen times in Iraq and Syria in the past week, the Pentagon said, warning that the U.S. will not tolerate attacks by Iran’s proxies. The U.S. suspects that Iran-backed groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah are behind the attacks. Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said at the U.N. on Thursday that the U.S. will “not be spared from this fire” if Israel’s offensive against Hamas does not stop.

The U.S. military carried out strikes on Thursday against two facilities in eastern Syria used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and groups it supports, the Pentagon said. “These precision self-defence strikes are a response to a series of ongoing and mostly unsuccessful attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militia groups that began on October 17,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.

“These Iranian-backed attacks against U.S. forces are unacceptable and must stop,” Austin said. Biden has sent a rare message to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warning Tehran against targeting U.S. personnel in the Middle East, the White House said earlier on Thursday.

Israel said on Friday that it was preparing “the next stage of the operation” in Gaza, amid fears that a ground invasion of the Palestinian enclave could spark a wider Middle East conflict. Israel has pounded the densely populated Gaza Strip following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israeli communities. Israel says Hamas killed some 1,400 people including children, and took more than 200 hostages, some of them infants and older adults.

The Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry said on Thursday that 7,028 Palestinians had been killed in the retaliatory air strikes, including 2,913 children. A missile launched as part of fighting between Hamas and Israel struck an Egyptian resort town about 220 km (135 miles) from the Gaza Strip early on Friday, Egypt’s Al Qahera News reported, citing sources.

The missile hit a medical facility in Taba, injuring at least six people, Al Qahera TV reported. A witness in Taba confirmed hearing an explosion and seeing smoke rising, but Reuters was not immediately able to identify the blast’s source. Taba is located on Egypt’s border with Israel’s Red Sea port of Eilat. Israel’s military said it was aware of a security incident outside its borders.

Israel said on Friday that its fighter jets had struck three senior Hamas operatives in the Daraj Tuffah Battalion, part of the Gaza City Brigade. Israel said the three commanders had played a significant role in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

There was no official announcement by Hamas. Palestinian militants clashed with Israeli troops in at least two areas of the Gaza Strip on Friday, Hamas-affiliated media reported.

Israeli military vehicles raided the central area of Al-Bureij and troops were clashing with militants near the border there, the reports said. In the south, in a border area near the town of Rafah, Hamas militants were trading fire with Israeli troops, according to the reports.

As the plight of Palestinian civilians grows more desperate, the issue of whether to have humanitarian pauses or ceasefire agreements in the Hamas-run coastal enclave will come before the 193-member U.N. General Assembly on Friday in a draft resolution submitted by Arab states calling for a ceasefire.