The US plans to move naval ships and military aircraft closer to Israel to show support as the conflict rages on in the Middle East following Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel
- As a sign of support, the US will send military ships and aircraft closer to Israel
- Washington believes the latest Hamas attack may have been motivated to disrupt a possible normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia
- The increasing violence threatens to trigger a major new war in the Middle East
The United States will send several military ships and aircraft closer to Israel as a show of support, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.
Washington believes the latest Hamas attack may have been motivated to disrupt a possible normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Hamas militants rampaged through Israeli cities as the country endured its bloodiest day in decades on Saturday.
Israel launched airstrikes on Palestinians in Gaza on Sunday, reportedly killing nearly 1,000 people on both sides.
The increasing violence threatens to trigger a major new war in the Middle East.
The United States will send several military ships and aircraft closer to Israel as a show of support, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said
The increasing violence threatens to trigger a major new war in the Middle East
Austin also added that the United States will provide Israel with ammunition and that its security assistance will begin on Sunday.
The Pentagon will also send fighter jets to the region, he said.
US President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday that additional aid for the Israel Defense Forces was on the way to Israel and more would follow in the coming days, the White House said after their call.
Austin said he had ordered a carrier strike group to move closer to Israel, including the Ford carrier and the ships supporting it.
“I directed the movement of the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to the Eastern Mediterranean,” he said in his statement.
Hamas’s dawn attack on Saturday marked the largest and deadliest incursion into Israel since Egypt and Syria launched a sudden attack to reclaim lost territory in the Yom Kippur War 50 years ago.
“It would be no surprise that part of the motivation was to disrupt efforts to bring together Saudi Arabia and Israel and other countries that may be interested in normalizing relations with Israel,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters CNN earlier on Sunday.
The militant Hamas rulers in the Gaza Strip launched an unprecedented multi-front attack on Israel at dawn on Saturday, firing thousands of rockets
Hamas said on Saturday the attack followed escalated Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, Jerusalem and on Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh had highlighted threats to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the continuation of an Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip and Israeli normalization with countries in the region.
Netanyahu said last month he believed his country was on the cusp of peace with Saudi Arabia and predicted the move could reshape the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s two holiest shrines, has long insisted on the Palestinians’ right to statehood as a condition for recognizing Israel – something many members of Netanyahu’s nationalist religious coalition have long opposed.
The United States said on Sunday that normalization efforts between Saudi Arabia and Israel should continue despite the latest attack.
“We believe it would be in the interest of both countries to pursue this possibility,” U.S. deputy national security adviser Jon Finer told Fox News on Sunday.
Blinken added that the United States had also noted reports of several Americans killed and kidnapped in Israel and that Washington was trying to verify the details and numbers.
Smoke rises in Gaza City after an Israeli airstrike on Sunday
“We have reports that several Americans have been killed.” “We are working overtime to check that,” Blinken said.
The minister described the attack on Israel as a “terrorist attack by a terrorist organization.”
Blinken added that there was relative calm across most of Israel on Sunday, but there was heavy fighting in Gaza, a Palestinian enclave blockaded by Israel that has seen protests by youth groups for weeks over long-standing grievances related to the Israeli military occupation and the Palestinian Citizens came cause and ongoing economic conflict.
He added that there was no evidence yet for the United States that Iran was behind the recent attack in Israel, but pointed to long-standing ties between Iran and Hamas, which rules Gaza.