The US has warned that there is a risk of a “significant escalation” of attacks against American troops and personnel in the Middle East, as fears intensified that the Israel-Hamas war could broaden into a regional conflict.
Lloyd Austin, the US secretary of defence, said on Sunday he was “concerned about potential escalation” of fighting in the region after militants attacked two military bases housing American troops in Iraq last Thursday.
The US is worried that the war between Israel and Hamas, which began on October 7th after the Palestinian militant group launched attacks that killed more than 1,400 people in southern Israel, will draw in Iran-backed militants across the Middle East.
The US has about 2,500 troops in Iraq, where Iranian-backed militants have evolved into the dominant military and political force, and about 900 in Syria, which is also home to Shia militias supported by Iran.
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Washington has ordered all non-emergency US government personnel and family members to leave Iraq and the state department cited “increased security threats against US Government personnel and interests”.
Mr Austin said the US had a “right to defend ourselves” and was sending more air defences to the Middle East, including a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) battery and additional Patriot air defence systems.
The US has also redirected one of two carrier strike groups headed to the region to the Persian Gulf, and placed additional troops on standby, on top of 2,000 already authorised. There are also 2,000 marines in the region.
“If any group or any country is looking to widen this conflict, take advantage of this very unfortunate situation that we see, our advice is don’t,” said Mr Austin.
In particular, both Israel and the US are concerned about increasing fire across Israel’s northern border from Hizbullah, the powerful Lebanese group that fought a 34-day war with the Jewish state in 2006.
On Sunday, Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned Hizbullah, that it would be making the “mistake of its life” if it decided to enter the war.
“We will strike it with a force it cannot even imagine and the meaning for it and the Lebanese state will be devastating,” he said on a visit to the country’s northern border. In a sign of Israeli concerns about fighting in the north, officials also called for residents in 14 more communities in the area to evacuate.
Hizbullah’s second-in-command Naim Qassem said on Saturday that the group was “in the heart of the battle” and warned that Israel would pay a high price if it launched a ground offensive in Gaza.
Hizbullah said five of its fighters had been killed on Saturday, the highest number in a single day since the start of hostilities two weeks ago, bringing the total number to 23.
“We are trying to weaken the Israeli enemy and let them know that we are ready,” Mr Qassem said. Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati said on Sunday that he would “not hesitate to make every effort to protect Lebanon”.
Meanwhile, Israel stepped up its bombardment of Gaza over the weekend ahead of an expected ground offensive, and again warned Palestinians to evacuate to the south of the besieged coastal strip. Israel’s military also said that one of its tanks had “accidentally fired and hit an Egyptian post” near its southern border, expressing “sorrow” for the incident and adding that it was being investigated.
Aid workers said the situation in Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas and home to 2.3 million people, is increasingly perilous. More than 4,700 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza since the beginning of the war, Palestinian health officials said on Sunday.
While a small aid convoy was permitted to enter Gaza on Saturday, the UN said that the 20 truckloads were just “a fraction of what is needed after 13 days of complete siege”. Another 17 trucks entered on Sunday, according to the World Food Programme.
Aid workers said they were starting to see cases of diseases attributable to poor sanitary conditions and consumption of dirty water, and warned that these were expected to increase unless water and sanitation facilities were provided and fuel or electricity resumed functioning.
On Sunday, the UN Palestinian relief agency UNWRA said fuel, which was not delivered in the first humanitarian convoy, was running out, and without it aid would not reach civilians “in desperate need”.
According to the UN, nearly one million people have been forced to flee their homes in Gaza since October 7th.
Tensions have also soared in the occupied West Bank. On Sunday, Israel launched an aerial strike on a mosque containing what Israel’s military and Shin Bet internal security service called a “terror compound” belonging to Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Jenin. Two people were killed, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.
That followed one of Israel’s deadliest raids in the occupied West Bank in years, in which at least 13 Palestinians were killed in the Nur Shams refugee camp last week, including five children, in what the Israeli military said was a “counterterror” operation. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2023