The United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Mexico, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland… Every day more countries are calling on their citizens in Lebanon to leave immediately in the face of escalating tensions in the Middle East. On Saturday, the US Embassy in Beirut urged its citizens to “book any available ticket, even if that flight does not leave immediately.” The British Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, has sent an even clearer message to the British in Lebanon: “Leave now,” as there are still flights available. “Tensions are high and the situation could deteriorate quickly,” he said in a statement, while the number of airlines cancelling their routes to Tel Aviv and Beirut is growing.
The “high tensions” have resulted in Washington’s decision to deploy more fighter planes and warships – cruisers and destroyers – in the area (and in the eastern Mediterranean), at the most tense moment since the beginning of the war in Gaza. The reason is the announced retaliation by Iran and its allied militias for the assassinations of the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniya, on Wednesday in Tehran, and of Fuad Shukr, number two of the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, in Beirut on Tuesday, attributed or recognized by Israel. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard has indicated this Saturday that the response will be “severe and at the appropriate time, place and manner” and that Haniya was hit by a short-range projectile with a warhead of about seven kilos.
Washington, like other allies in the regionfears that Tehran’s retaliation will be greater than that of April, which consisted of Hundreds of drones and missilesbut designed to carry more of a message than any real danger. On that occasion, American and other allied aircraft were deployed to help intercept almost all of the missiles.
The Pentagon also believes that militias allied to Tehran, such as the Houthis in Yemen or Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq, can attack US troops stationed in the area. After two weeks without incident, the British Navy reported on Saturday an explosion very close to a commercial ship passing through the Gulf of Aden; and the US army, the destruction of a missile and a launcher belonging to the Houthi militants in Yemen.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s government assumes that retaliation is only a matter of time and, according to local media, has distributed satellite phones to its ministers. The armed forces are on high alert, with airspace in the north closed, but with no new instructions to the population. Air traffic continues at the main airport, Ben Gurion, near Tel Aviv, but more and more airlines are stopping operating routes to Israel or Lebanon. The latest are KLM, the Dutch branch of the group with Air France (it will not fly to Tel Aviv until October 26); the Italian ITA, the Polish LOT, the Greek Aegean… Others have not formally announced it, but are effectively cancelling flights.
The day was also particularly bloody in the West Bank, with nine people killed in drone attacks, which had been almost non-existent there since the Second Intifada (2000-2005) and which the Israeli army has used again in parallel with the invasion of Gaza.
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In this context, the Pentagon has reported that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has approved the deployment of more ships and aircraft to the area. He calls it “an adjustment designed to improve the protection of American forces, increase support for the defense of Israel, and ensure that the United States is prepared to respond in a variety of circumstances.”
Washington will also send a squadron of fighters to the Middle East and is considering deploying more missile defense systems on land. The Defense Department has not specified when. Austin has ordered the aircraft carrier to Abraham Lincoln and its group of escort vessels replace the Theodore Rooseveltwhich was scheduled to return to its base. The order indicates that the Pentagon has decided to keep at least one aircraft carrier in the area at all times.
Austin spoke to his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, hours before the Pentagon’s announcement. The defense secretary stressed to his interlocutor that “further escalation is not inevitable,” but insisted that neither Iran nor the militias it protects in the region “should have any doubt” about the United States’ determination to support Israel in the face of aggression.
Drag Washington
Several analysts interpret the double assassination of Shukr and Haniya (the latter on Iranian soil) as an attempt to drag Washington into a regional war that it does not want, just when Iran has just elected a president, Masud Pezeshkian, who is more open to nuclear dialogue with the White House.
US President Joe Biden himself admitted that the murder of Haniya, a top political leader involved in achieving a ceasefire, “does not help” the negotiations. The relatives of the hundred Israeli hostages in Gaza are also wondering whether it was necessary, at least at this time.
On Saturday, organisers cancelled the weekly protest against Netanyahu in Tel Aviv due to the situation, but there were others in support of a swap deal to secure the return of the hostages, with accusations against the prime minister of boycotting it. One example was that of Einav Zangauker, the mother of one of the hostages, who reproached Netanyahu for “launching a deliberate attack on a deal that is on the table” and “choosing to escalate the situation to guarantee an agreement that would save lives and prevent a dangerous escalation”. Israel’s Channel 12 television reported that, in a meeting with the military leadership, the Minister of Defence, Yoav Gallant, accused him of introducing changes to the draft agreement knowing that Hamas would never accept them: “There will be no agreement with the conditions you have added and you know it,” she told him, according to the channel.
On Thursday, Biden spoke by phone with Netanyahu. The White House statement mentions potential additional deployments to protect Israel, but not the need for a ceasefire in Gaza to calm the waters and which the White House had been calling for. According to a report on Saturday by Israeli television’s Channel 13, a Biden in his final months of office also cut Netanyahu off with a “stop kidding” when he told him he was moving toward a ceasefire agreement. As always when an action or leak leaves him in a bad light regarding the lack of an agreement, Netanyahu sent a negotiating team to Cairo on Saturday. The meeting apparently ended without progress.
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