By Blessing Chinagorom
The United States has come into Israel rescues as Iran launched nearly 200 ballistic missile on Tuesday, 1st of October, 2024.
State Department Spokesman, Mathew Miller who made this known at a Press Briefing on Tuesday said the initial assessment is that Israel, with direct assistance from the United States and its partners, was able to successfully defeat this attack.
According to the Spokesman, “The United States once again came to Israeli’s defense against these attacks, just as we participated in Israeli’s defense when Iran launched its April 13th attack. 
“Our initial assessment is that Israel, with direct assistance from the United States and its partners, was able to successfully defeat this attack. This was a brazen, unacceptable attack by Iran, and every nation in the world must join us in condemning it.
“Secretary Blinken joined President Biden, Vice President Harris, and other members of the President’s national security team in monitoring this attack as it was unfolding, as well as our response.
“As the President has made clear, our support for Israel’s security is ironclad. We will continue to stand with the people of Israel at this critical moment”, the Spokesman added.
Miller said this action have justified the United States warning for some time now about the threat posed by Iran arming and funding terrorist groups across the Middle East. “The attack today just demonstrated the danger of those actions.
“What you saw was Iran launching a state-on-state attack to protect and defend the terrorist groups that it has built, nurtured and that it controls. So there is a difference between the actions that we have seen Israel take to defend its civilians”, he said.
It was reported that Iran fired 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday evening, Israeli military said, adding that there were no immediate reports of casualties in Israel, but one Palestinian man was killed by falling missile fragments in the occupied West Bank.
Meanwhile, Iran has vowed to retaliate following attacks that killed top leadership of its Hizbollah allies in Lebanon.
The firing of missiles came after Israel said its troops had launched ground raids into Lebanon, though it described the forays as limited. The Israeli campaign in Lebanon is the biggest escalation of regional warfare since fighting erupted in Gaza a year ago.
In Washington, US President Joe Biden said the United States was prepared to help Israel defend itself from Iranian missile attacks.
“We discussed how the United States is prepared to help Israel defend against these attacks, and protect American personnel in the region,” Biden said on X about a meeting held with Vice President Kamala Harris and the White House national security team earlier in the day.
The Iranian missile launches came after Israeli ground troops launched raids into Lebanon and its warplanes bombed from the skies.
Though, so far characterised by Israel as limited, the first ground campaign into Lebanon for 18 years would pit Israeli soldiers against Hezbollah, Iran’s best-armed proxy force in the Middle East.
It marks the biggest escalation of regional warfare since fighting erupted in Gaza a year ago, and follows weeks of intense airstrikes that have decapitated Hezbollah by killing most of its top leaders. More than thousand Lebanese have been killed and a million have fled their homes.
Iran, which sponsors Hizbollah, has vowed to retaliate against Israel, raising fears that war could spill across borders throughout the region, despite efforts by the United States, Israel’s closest and most powerful ally, to contain it.
In the latest announced killing of a senior Hizbollah figure, Israel said it had assassinated Muhammad Jaafar Qasir, describing him as a commander in charge of weapons transfers from Iran and its affiliates.
The rapid escalation that has engulfed Lebanon into war has killed hundreds. Near the city of Sidon along the Mediterranean south of Beirut, mourners wept over coffins containing black-shrouded bodies of people killed in Israeli strikes.
