The Pentagon promises to help defend Israel.
Israel was bracing for retaliatory attacks from Iran and its proxies in the aftermath of a top Hamas leader’s assassination as additional American combat aircraft and missile-shooting warships were being dispatched to the region.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III ordered the movements Friday to come to Israel’s defense in the event of an attack, and to prepare for the possibility that Iran-backed groups might target American forces in the region as part of the expected retribution. Some American warships already in the Mediterranean will move closer to the coast of Israel, according to a senior Pentagon official.
The killing of the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in an explosion at a military-run guesthouse in Tehran on Wednesday, was a stunning breach of security in the Iranian capital. Iran arrested more than two dozen people, including senior intelligence officers, in response. The country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has issued an order for Iran to strike Israel directly for the killing, according to Iranian officials.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said on Thursday that his country was preparing for any retaliatory attacks, saying Israel is “in very high readiness for any scenario — both defensively and offensively.” Israel has neither denied nor taken responsibility for the Hamas leader’s assassination.
At Mr. Haniyeh’s burial on Friday in Qatar, where he was running the Gaza-based militant group’s political arm from exile, his likely successors pledged to continue Hamas’s fight.
The Pentagon did not specify when the additional warplanes and combat vessels would arrive in the Middle East, but officials said on Friday it would be a matter of days for the additional aircraft and somewhat longer for naval reinforcements.
Sabrina Singh, the deputy Pentagon press secretary, said that during a telephone call Mr. Austin held with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, on Friday morning, Mr. Austin “committed” that the United States would help Israel in its defense. “We will be bolstering our force protection in the region,” she said.
The Pentagon is also bracing for the possibility that Iran-backed groups, including the Houthis in Yemen and Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq, might target American troops in the region as part of the expected Iranian retaliation for the killing of Mr. Haniyeh.
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