Israel-Hezbollah Conflict: US to Send Additional Forces to the Middle East

“Due to the extreme precautions and heightened tensions in the Middle East, we are sending a small number of additional military personnel to augment our existing forces in the region. But in the interests of operational security, I will not comment further and will not provide additional information,” Ryder said.

Associated Press reminds that USA they maintain a contingent of 40,000 soldiers in the region.

Also on Monday, according to a previously established schedule, the USS Truman aircraft carrier sailed from Norfolk, Virginia, to the Mediterranean Sea, accompanied by two destroyers and a cruiser. There is therefore a possibility – AP predicts – that two American aircraft carriers will remain in the region – Truman and the USS Abraham Lincoln, which is in the waters of the Gulf of Oman.

On Saturday, the State Department advised US citizens to leave as soon as possible. Lebanonwhile it can still be done on commercial flights. Gen. Ryder did not respond to reporters' questions about whether additional troops would support a possible evacuation of Americans from Lebanon.

Boss Pentagon Lloyd Austin He held several telephone conversations with the Minister of Defense over the weekend Israel Yoav Galant and urged him to ease tensions in the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, Ryder said.

The head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell warned Monday that the conflict between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah threatens to plunge the Middle East into open conflict. “I can say that we are almost on the brink of total war,” he said.

He once again called for a ceasefire along the Blue Line between northern Israel and southern Lebanon. The European foreign minister condemned the fact that civilians were “paying an unbearable, unacceptable price”. “It's time to do something. Everyone must do everything in their power to stop this,” he said. He also acknowledged the failure of diplomatic efforts to end the war in Gaza.

There has been a systematic exchange of fire on the Lebanese-Israeli border since October 7, but in recent days the shelling has been exceptionally intense, raising fears of a full-scale war.

On Monday, Lebanese health ministry In 2018, he reported that 492 people were killed and 1,645 wounded in Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon, while the Israeli army reported that its aircraft attacked some 800 Hezbollah targets, which in turn fired some 180 rockets at northern Israel.

It is the bloodiest attack on Lebanon not only since the start of the Gaza war but since the end of the Second Lebanon War in 2006, in which more than a thousand Lebanese and over 100 Israelis were killed.

Hezbollah, a Shiite party in Lebanon and a terrorist organization, is financed, trained and generally supported by Tehran, for which it is an important link in the “axis of resistance”, a network that allows it to exert significant influence over the entire region. In conflicts with Israel, Hezbollah also plays the role of a “subcontractor” Iran.

According to the New York Times, the US administration stopped Israel from launching a preventive attack on Lebanon in the fall of 2023, and Minister Galant was supposed to be a supporter of such an operation.