President Joe Biden says the US “helped Israel take down nearly all of the incoming drones and missiles” from Iran.

In a statement, he says he directed US military aircraft and ballistic missile defence destroyers to the region “over the course of the past week”.

“Thanks to these deployments and the extraordinary skill of our servicemembers, we helped Israel take down nearly all of the incoming drones and missiles,” the president says.

“I condemn these attacks in the strongest possible terms.”