US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited the USS Gerald Ford to meet with sailors he had ordered to remain at sea to prevent the war between Israel and Hamas from escalating into a more dangerous regional conflict.
The US fears that Israel could launch a similar military operation on the northern border with Lebanon to expel Hezbollah militants from there, which could lead to the opening of a second front and the expansion of the war.
At a news conference in Tel Aviv, Austin did not say whether the mission of US troops might be expanded to protect Israel if the campaign spreads to Lebanon.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant appeared to tone down recent rhetoric about the inevitability of a second front, pointing to the priority of diplomatic efforts.
However, this leaves significant uncertainty for the Gerald Ford and its crew, which Austin ordered the day after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 to sail to the eastern Mediterranean to be closer to Israel.
Speaking through the ship’s public address system, which is several hundred kilometers off the Israeli coast, Austin thanked the sailors who gave up spending the holidays with their families because of the mission.
“Sometimes our greatest accomplishments are when we prevent something bad from happening,” Austin said. “At a time of great tension in the region, you have all become the linchpin that prevents a wider regional conflict.”
The defense secretary met with a group of sailors in the Gerald Ford hangar to talk about the various dangers in the region, which is monitored by the aircraft carrier and the destroyers and cruisers deployed with it.
Austin thanked them for their attention to the cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
The Pentagon chief later told reporters accompanying him that if Israel abandoned major military operations in the Gaza Strip, it might reduce tensions in the region that have kept the aircraft carrier there.
The Gerald Ford’s commander, Navy Capt. Rick Burgess, said one of the carrier’s main contributions is that it is close enough to Israel to be able to send its aircraft in support if needed.
While the carrier’s fighters and surveillance planes are not providing surveillance assistance to Israel during operations in the Gaza Strip, other ships in the strike group are doing so, Burgess said.
The Gerald Ford is one of two American carrier strike groups deployed on opposite sides of the conflict zone.
A second group, led by the aircraft carrier Dwight Eisenhower, recently patrolled the Gulf of Aden area near the mouth of the Red Sea, where many commercial ships have come under attack in recent weeks.
Iran-backed Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen have vowed to launch missile and drone strikes against commercial shipping passing through the Red Sea until Israel stops its devastating bombing of the Gaza Strip.
To counter attacks on shipping, Austin announced a new international maritime mission to encourage countries to send warships and other assets to the southern Red Sea to protect the roughly 400 commercial ships that pass through the waterway daily.
