The situation at a glance: USA reduces aircraft carrier presence in the Middle East region

After a deployment lasting several weeks in response to the crisis in the Middle East, the USA has withdrawn its aircraft carrier “USS Theodore Roosevelt” from the Red Sea. The ship and its convoy are on their way through the Indo-Pacific, said US Department of Defense spokesman Pat Ryder. The aircraft carrier “USS Abraham Lincoln” and its escort ships remain in the Middle East and are currently cruising in the Gulf of Oman.

Ryder did not give any details about the withdrawal, but spoke generally of “fleet management”. If necessary, the USA would be able to be on site with two aircraft carriers, he stressed. The “Lincoln” and its escort ships joined the “Roosevelt” as a second fleet unit at the beginning of August after the situation in the region had worsened.

At the time, Iran had threatened its arch-enemy Israel with massive retaliation after the leader of the Palestinian radical Islamic Hamas, which is allied with Iran, Ismail Haniya, was murdered in Tehran. Iran had blamed Israel for the attack. The promised retaliatory strike has not yet taken place.

The USA is Israel’s most important ally. It recently deployed additional warships, aircraft and a nuclear submarine equipped with missiles to the region.

Deaths in Israeli attacks in Lebanon and Syria

Meanwhile, at least three people were killed in an Israeli attack in Lebanon, according to authorities. Among them was a child, the Ministry of Health in Beirut said. Three people were also injured in the attack near Nabatieh in the south of the country. It was not immediately clear whether members of Hezbollah were among the victims. The Israeli military did not initially comment.

Meanwhile, Israel’s army says it killed two militants in air strikes in southern Syria. One of them was a member of the Lebanese Hezbollah group active in Syria. According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, those attacked were said to have acted as recruiters and arms transporters for Hezbollah.

Previously, there had been mutual fire between the pro-Iranian Hezbollah and the Israeli military. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for several attacks on targets in northern Israel. According to the Lebanese news agency NNA, the Israeli army also attacked several targets in southern Lebanon.

Since the Gaza war between Israel and Hezbollah’s ally Hamas began eleven months ago, there have been almost daily military confrontations between the Israeli army and Hezbollah in the border region between the two countries. There have been deaths on both sides – most of them Hezbollah members. Hezbollah says it is acting in solidarity with Hamas.

Did Israel have ground troops on Syrian territory?

According to media reports, Israel attacked and destroyed a precision missile factory in Syria last weekend in a daring airborne maneuver. The reports in the New York Times and the news portal axios.com are based on the statements of unnamed individuals who were said to have been involved in the operation or had first-hand knowledge of it. The weapons factory is said to have been built by Iran, Syria’s most important ally, primarily to supply the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon with missiles.

Syria’s state news agency Sana reported on Monday that 18 people were killed and dozens more injured in an air strike allegedly carried out by Israel in the Masjaf region in the west of the country. The reports at the time did not mention ground troops. Israel does not usually comment on such attacks. However, the Israeli army repeatedly attacks positions of militias in Syria that are supported by Iran, as well as weapons shipments intended for Hezbollah.

The deployment of soldiers from the elite air force unit Shaldag on Syrian soil would be – if the reports are true – a first for Israel. Israel’s military has been observing the construction and function of the underground weapons factory in Masjaf for years, according to “axios.com”. Since the facility was underground, it could not have been destroyed by air strikes alone. In recent years, the planned mission has been called off twice because it was considered too risky, it was reported.

According to reports, the Shaldag soldiers rappelled from helicopters, killed the plant’s guards, seized documents and blew up the factory. The airstrikes were said to have been intended to keep the Syrian military away from the scene.

No active tunnels under Gaza border with Egypt

After several months of operations in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, Israel’s military says it has found nine tunnels that lead under the border towards Egypt. However, all of them had already been closed, either by neighboring Egypt or by Hamas, which previously ruled the Gaza Strip, reports the “Times of Israel” citing the commander of the 162nd Division responsible for Rafah, Brigadier Itzik Cohen.

Soldiers from the division found 203 tunnels with a total length of 13 kilometers in the city on the border with Egypt, which they largely destroyed. Nine of them led into the neighboring country. “They have collapsed, are unusable and are not active,” Cohen is quoted as saying.

The alleged smuggling tunnels through which Hamas is said to have supplied itself with weapons and equipment via Egypt play a central role in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s argument for insisting on a permanent military presence in Rafah. These demands by Netanyahu are currently one of the main obstacles to diplomatic efforts to achieve a ceasefire in the Gaza war and the release of the hostages held by Hamas.

Smuggling probably via regular border crossings

Leading Israeli military officials believe, however, that Hamas manufactured the majority of the weapons itself in the Gaza Strip, writes the daily newspaper “Haaretz”. Before the war, the Islamists smuggled the necessary material into the otherwise sealed-off coastal area via the regular border crossings at Rafah (Egypt) and Kerem Shalom (Israel).

The Gaza War was triggered by the unprecedented massacre that terrorists from Hamas and other extremist groups carried out in Israel near the Gaza border on October 7. On the Israeli side, more than 1,200 people were killed and another 250 were taken hostage to the Gaza Strip. Israel responded with massive air strikes and a ground offensive.

According to the Hamas-controlled health authority, at least 41,118 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the war began. The figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants and cannot be independently verified.