JERUSALEM

The US has given the green light to a series of strikes on Iranian Targets in Syria and Iraq after a drone attack killed three US soldiers in Jordan near the Syrian border on Sunday the attack injured 41 other US troops at this military base known as Tower 22 the US

Defense secretary Lloyd Austin said the United States would not tolerate attacks on American troops this is a dangerous moment in the Middle East we will continue to work to avoid a wider conflict in a region but we will take all necessary actions to defend the United States our interest and our

People and we will respond when we choose where we choose and how we choose our North America editor Sarah Smith joins us now and what more do we know about that response well we know that plans have been approved approved for a series of strikes over a number of days so this

Action will take a while uh targeting Iranian personnel and Facilities but not inside Iran in Iraq and in Syria that’s where the uh Iranian backed militia who’ve been attacking US forces have been operating from that’s where uh they were operating from when they killed three US soldiers at the weekend and

That distinction is very very important because if America was actually to strike targets inside Iran itself that would risk dangerously escalating tensions in the region and this is the the really delicate balance America is trying to come up with they need decisive retaliation that is dramatic enough they hope to deter further

Attacks on their forces but at the same time they don’t want to do anything that could cause the conflict to spread that’s the very thing they’ve been trying to avoid happening and Sarah in another development we’ve learned tonight that President Biden is taking action against the number of Israeli

Settlers who’ve been accused of attacking Palestinians in the the occupied West Bank yeah this is really unusual he’s signed an executive order so that means the president can do this all by himself to impose sanctions on just four for now um Israeli settlers and there has been

An an uptaking violence some of it deadly against Palestinians in the West Bank America has been growing increasingly frustrated by that so they are applying now the same sanctions against some Israeli settlers that they apply to terrorist organizations and that has clearly infuriated the Israeli government who say they’re the ones who

Will take action against law Breakers in their country and that these unusual measures are completely unnecessary and I think this gives us a glimpse of uh something wider and important that has been going on and that is America and President Biden himself’s frustrations with the Israeli government they’re having constant conversations not just

About this but about the conduct of the war in Gaza they’re having disagreements and they feel that Benjamin Netanyahu the Israeli Prime Minister is not listening to them um not doing what they ask and this I think just shows us a rare sight in public of what is an

Increasing riff between America and Israel