JERUSALEM, May 12 (Reuters) – Israel has sent batteries for its Iron Dome air defence system along with personnel to operate them to the United Arab Emirates, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said on Tuesday.
The batteries, which typically include radars and missile launchers, were sent to the UAE to help it defend against Iranian attacks, a source briefed on the matter told Reuters.
Iran has targeted the UAE more than any other country during the war that began on February 28 with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, with Iran continuing to launch attacks at the UAE during the current truce.
“Israel just sent them (the UAE) Iron Dome batteries and personnel to help them operate them. How come? Because there’s an extraordinary relationship between the UAE and Israel based on the Abraham Accords,” Huckabee said at an event in Tel Aviv, referring to a 2020 deal that saw Israel establish ties with the UAE.
Israel has also supplied air defence systems to the UAE in the past. Senior Emirati official Anwar Gargash, an adviser to the country’s president, said on March 17 that Iranian attacks on its Arab neighbours would strengthen relations between Israel and those Arab states that have diplomatic ties with Israel.
President Donald Trump said on Monday the ceasefire with Iran was “on life support”.
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Huckabee, speaking in Tel Aviv, was also asked about carried out by Israelis against Christians in Jerusalem’s Old City and by Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
An Evangelical Christian who has long supported Israel, Huckabee responded that “terrorism is terrorism. It doesn’t matter who does it, it’s what is done that is the crime.”
Huckabee also said many of the Israelis committing violence in the West Bank, which he referred to as Judea and Samaria, the biblical name used by Israel’s government, did not live there.
He said that they may live in Tel Aviv, a city that is generally perceived as more liberal than other parts of the country. But after some in the crowd jeered, Huckabee added: “But they probably don’t”.
“But wherever they live, when they commit an act of terror or crime, then what they have done, I feel like, is a dishonor to the State of Israel and to the Jewish people, and it should be condemned,” he said, which was met with applause.
(Reporting by Rami Amichay and Andreea Popescu; Writing by Alexander Cornwell; editing by Rami Ayyub, Aidan Lewis)
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