ABOARD THE USS GERALD R. FORD — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin flew to the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford on Wednesday to meet with sailors who he ordered to stay at sea to prevent this from happening. Israel-Hamas war From turning into a bloodier regional conflict.
Austin was in the region to pressure Israel to shift its bombing of Gaza to the region More limited campaign and move more quickly to meet the urgent humanitarian needs of Palestinian civilians.
At the same time, the United States expressed concern that Israel would launch a similar military operation along its borders The northern border with Lebanon To expel Hizb allah There is a possibility of opening a second front and expanding the scope of the war.
At a news conference in Tel Aviv on Monday, Austin did not say whether US forces could be increased to defend Israel if its campaign expands into Lebanon, and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant appeared to tone down recent rhetoric that a northern front was imminent. First, postpone diplomatic efforts.
However, this leaves an incredibly uncertain situation for the Ford and its crew, who were ordered by Austin to be closer to the eastern Mediterranean than Israel the day after Hamas militants stormed southern Israel on October 7. The aircraft carrier includes more than 4,000 sailors and their accompanying warships. I was supposed to go home in early November.
Using the public address system of the ship Ford, which is sailing a few hundred miles off the coast of Israel, Austin thanked the sailors and their families for giving up vacationing together because of the mission.
“Sometimes our greatest accomplishments are the bad things we prevent from happening,” Austin told the crew. He added: “At a moment of tremendous tension in the region, you all served as the backbone of preventing a broader regional conflict.”
The Minister of Defense met with a group of sailors in the Ford aircraft hangar to talk about the various dangers in the area that the carrier and the destroyers and cruisers deployed with it were monitoring.
He thanked them for their interest in the cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, and later told reporters traveling with him that if Israel moved away from major combat operations in Gaza, it could ease some of the regional tension that has kept Ford in Syria. place.
Ford’s commander, Navy Capt. Rick Burgess, said one of Ford’s key contributions was staying close enough to Israel to be able to send its aircraft to provide support, if necessary. Burgess said that while Ford’s fighter jets and surveillance aircraft do not contribute to the surveillance needs of Israeli operations in Gaza, other ships in its strike group do.
Ford is one of two US aircraft carrier strike groups involved in the conflict. The other ship, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, recently patrolled near the Gulf of Aden, at the mouth of the Red Sea waterway where several merchant ships have been attacked in recent weeks.
The Iran-backed Houthis In neighboring Yemen, the United States has vowed to continue striking commercial ships crossing the Red Sea with ballistic missiles and drones until Israel stops its devastating bombing of Gaza, which has so far claimed the lives of more than 19,000 Palestinians.
To counter ship attacks, Austin announced a new international naval mission on Tuesday to get countries to send their warships and other assets to the southern Red Sea, to protect the nearly 400 commercial ships that cross the waterway daily.
Since leaving Norfolk in the first week of May, Ford’s fighter and surveillance aircraft have flown more than 8,000 missions. Austin noted that the crew was moving at full speed, consuming more than 100,000 Monster Energy drinks and 155,000 Red Bull along the way.
Tara Cobb is the Pentagon correspondent for The Associated Press. She was previously the Pentagon bureau chief for Sightline Media Group.
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