The Pentagon said Sunday it will deploy a high-altitude anti-missile system and its US military crew to Israel to help the ally protect itself from potential Iranian missile attacks.

At the direction of US President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “authorized the deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery and associated crew of US military personnel to Israel to help bolster Israel’s air defenses following Iran’s unprecedented attacks against Israel on April 13 and again on October 1,” Pentagon press secretary Pat Ryder said in a statement.

Earlier Sunday Israeli warplanes also hit a 100-year-old mosque in the village of Kfar Tibnit near the border, Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) said.

“It was a significant place because families used to gather in the square right next to it (the mosque) on special occasions,” Mayor Fuad Yassin told AFP.

Hamas sparked the ongoing war in Gaza with the deadliest-ever attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

The number includes hostages killed in captivity.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says 42,227 people, the majority civilians, have been killed since Israel’s military campaign began there. The UN acknowledges these figures to be reliable.

In support of Hamas, Hezbollah started firing into northern Israel in October last year, triggering a near-daily exchange of fire until the war escalated in late September.

Netanyahu vowed to fight Hezbollah until Israelis displaced by the violence could return to their homes.

Since then, more than 1,200 people have been killed in Lebanon and a million others have been displaced, according to Lebanese officials.

Mikati said his government would ask the UN Security Council to issue a new resolution calling for a “full and immediate ceasefire”.

In a visit to Baghdad ahead of Israel’s expected retaliation for Iran’s October 1 missile attack on Israel, Iran’s top diplomat Abbas Araghchi on Sunday said Tehran was “fully prepared for a war situation”.

He added: “We do not want war.”