The US has deployed an amphibious assault ship to the Middle East to demonstrate support for Israel amid soaring tensions on the Lebanon-Israel border.
The Pentagon announced that the USS Wasp arrived in the eastern Mediterranean Sea last week. The deployment comes amid fears of a full-blown Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon as Israeli forces and Hezbollah continue to trade fire across the border.
A US official told The Associated Press that the deployment was “about deterrence,” but the US show of force could embolden Israel. The US insists it’s working to prevent a war in Lebanon, but Middle East Eye recently reported that Washington conveyed to Lebanon it would ultimately support Israel if it went ahead with an invasion.
The Wasp is carrying a US Marine Corps Expeditionary Unit and is sailing along with the USS Oak Hill, a dock landing ship. US officials told NBC News last week that one purpose of the Wasp’s deployment is to stand by to evacuate Americans in the event that a full-scale war breaks out along the Israel-Lebanon border.
Another US official told AP that the deployment of the Wasp was comparable to the US sending warships to the region in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel and the start of the Israeli onslaught in Gaza.
The US said the purpose of building up its forces in the Middle East after October 7 was to prevent a regional war. But the brutal assault on Gaza sparked other conflicts across the region, including the Houthi attacks on commercial shipping, which led to a new US bombing campaign in Yemen.
