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The US is sending a guided missile submarine to the Middle East, as it bolsters its regional presence amid fears Iran and its proxies are poised to retaliate against Israel for the killing of senior Hamas and Hizbollah figures.
US defence secretary Lloyd Austin has also ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, which is equipped with F-35 fighter jets, to “accelerate its transit to the region” in light of the “escalating tensions”.
“Secretary Austin reiterated the United States’ commitment to take every possible step to defend Israel,” the Pentagon said in a statement on Sunday, which it issued after Austin had spoken to his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant.
Gallant’s office said on Monday that he and Austin had discussed the “interoperability” of Israeli and US forces in the region. He warned on Sunday that “whoever harms us in a way that has not been done in the past, is likely to be hit in a way that hasn’t been done in the past”.
“I hope that they will think this through and won’t get to a point where they will force us to cause significant damage and increase the chances of war breaking out on additional fronts. We do not want this, but we must be prepared,” he said.
Iran has been vowing to “punish” Israel since Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran last month, hours after he attended the inauguration of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian.
Meanwhile, Hizbollah, has pledged to retaliate against Israel for its killing a day earlier of Fuad Shukr — one of the Lebanese militant group’s most senior commanders — in response to a suspected Hizbollah missile strike that killed 12 youngsters on a football pitch in the occupied Golan Heights.
While Israel has acknowledged that it was behind Shukr’s killing, it has neither confirmed nor denied that it killed Haniyeh, in line with its long-standing policy of not commenting on operations in Iran.
But both Iran and Hamas have blamed Israel for Haniyeh’s assassination, which has fuelled fears that the region could be sliding towards an all-out war, and left diplomats from the US and other countries working frantically to de-escalate the situation.
The leaders of France, Germany and the UK called on Iran and its allies “to refrain from attacks that would further escalate regional tensions”.
“No country or nation stands to gain from a further escalation in the Middle East,” the leaders said in a joint statement on Monday.
The statement, signed by French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, called for an immediate ceasefire in the 10-month war between Israel and Hamas, and for the Palestinian militant group to release the hostages it still holds in the wake of its October 7 attack on Israel that triggered the hostilities.
US President Joe Biden and the leaders of Qatar and Egypt last week said mediators were making an urgent push to resume stalled hostage talks on Thursday in the hope of securing a ceasefire and preventing a further escalation.
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