Iran USA reduces aircraft carrier presence in Middle East region

After several weeks of deployment in response to the crisis in the Middle East, the USA has withdrawn its aircraft carrier "USS Theodore Roosevelt" from the Red Sea.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, according to US Department of Defense spokesman Pat Ryder. The aircraft carrier "USS Abraham Lincoln" and its escort ships, which are currently cruising in the Gulf of Oman, remain in the Middle East.

Ryder did not give any details of the withdrawal, but spoke in general terms of "fleet management". If necessary, the USA is in a position to be on site with two aircraft carriers, he emphasized. The "Lincoln" and its escort ships had joined the "Roosevelt" as the second fleet unit at the beginning of August after the situation in the region had deteriorated.

At the time, Iran had threatened its arch-enemy Israel with massive retaliation after the leader of the Iran-aligned Palestinian radical Islamic group Hamas, Ismail Haniya, was murdered in Tehran. Iran had blamed Israel for the attack. The announced retaliatory strike has not yet materialized.

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

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

Meanwhile, Israel's army said it had killed two militants in air strikes in southern Syria. One of them was a Lebanese Hezbollah cadre active in Syria. According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, those attacked are said to have acted as recruiters and weapons transporters for Hezbollah.

Previously, there had been reciprocal 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 beginning of the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas, which is allied with Hezbollah, eleven months ago, there have been almost daily military confrontations between the Israeli army and Hezbollah in the border area between the two countries. There have been casualties on both sides - most of them Hezbollah members. According to its own statements, Hezbollah is acting in solidarity with Hamas.

Was Israel on Syrian territory with ground troops?

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

Syria's state news agency Sana had already reported on Monday that 18 people were killed and dozens more injured in an airstrike presumably carried out by Israel in the Masjaf region in the west of the country. There was no mention of ground troops in the reports at the time. Israel does not usually comment on such attacks. However, the Israeli army repeatedly attacks militia positions in Syria that are supported by Iran, as well as weapons transports intended for Hezbollah.

If the reports are true, the deployment of soldiers from the elite Shaldag air force unit on Syrian soil would be a first for Israel. According to axios.com, Israel's military had been observing the construction and operation of the underground weapons factory in Masjaf for years. As the facility was located underground, it could not have been destroyed by air strikes alone. The planned mission had been called off twice in recent years because it was considered too risky, it added.

According to the reports, the Schaldag soldiers rappelled down from helicopters, killed the plant's guards, seized documents and blew up the factory. The airstrikes are said to have served 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 has reportedly found nine tunnels leading 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 Brigadier Itzik Cohen, commander of the 162nd Division responsible for Rafah.

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 are collapsed, unusable and inactive," 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 argumentation in his insistence 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 hostages held by Hamas.

Smuggling more likely via regular border crossings

However, leading Israeli military officers believe that Hamas produced 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 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 carried out by terrorists from Hamas and other extremist groups on October 7 in Israel near the border with Gaza. More than 1,200 people were killed on the Israeli side and a further 250 were taken hostage in 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 start of the war. The figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants and cannot be independently verified.

SDA