(Adds additional reporting credit)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States continues to assess that the threat of attack against Israel by Iran and its proxy groups still exists, the Pentagon said on Monday, after Hezbollah launched hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel in retaliation for the killing of a senior Hezbollah commander.
“I would point you to some of the public comments that have been made by Iranian leaders and others … we continue to assess that there is a threat of attack,” Pentagon spokesperson Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder told reporters.
Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said earlier that Iran’s aggressive activities towards Israel had never been higher, adding Israel and the U.S. must be prepared to prevent the Islamic Republic from gaining nuclear weapons.
Gallant was meeting with top U.S. military officer General C.Q. Brown, who is on a trip to the region aimed at preventing Israel’s war with the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza from engulfing the region.
In one of the biggest clashes in more than 10 months of border warfare, Israel on Sunday struck Iran’s Lebanon-based proxy Hezbollah with around 100 jets in what it said was a pre-emptive strike aimed at thwarting a much larger attack.
Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also met with the Israeli military’s Chief of General Staff Herzi Halevi.
“We are very determined to continue degrading Hezbollah’s capabilities, eliminating more commanders. We are not stopping. Our mission is to return the residents of the north to their homes in safety,” Halevi told Brown.
With three deaths confirmed in Lebanon and one in Israel following Sunday’s missile exchange, both sides indicated they were happy to avoid further escalation for now, but warned that there could be more strikes to come.
(Reporting by Idrees Ali, Additional reporting by Maytaal Angel, Editing by Nick Zieminski and Cynthia Osterman)
