The Pentagon announced on Sunday evening that it has deployed one of its nuclear submarines to Middle Eastern waters, as the Israel-Hamas war approaches its second month. US Central Command made the announcement in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying that an Ohio-class submarine has arrived in the region.
“On November 5, 2023, an Ohio-class submarine arrived in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility,” CENTCOM said, without offering details on its exact location. The submarine is able to carry cruise and Tomahawk missiles, and is the latest sign in a show of US force in the region as the war escalates. The deployment adds to two US carriers that are already in the region.
On November 5, 2023, an Ohio-class submarine arrived in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. pic.twitter.com/iDgUFp4enp
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) November 5, 2023
Meanwhile the Eisenhower strike group arrived to join the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group in the Mediterranean on Saturday as Washington seeks to deter Iran and the militias it backs across the Middle East from launching attacks amid Israel’s war in Gaza. The Pentagon also dispatched missile defense equipment and support to Gulf allies. On Sunday, CIA director Bill Burns arrived in the region on a tour that starts with Israel then Egypt and Gulf states. The Biden administration is seeking a humanitarian pause to the war and is increasingly concerned over regional backlash.
On Sunday, Turkish police responded with tear gas and water cannons as hundreds of pro-Palestinian protestors tried to storm Incirlik airbase in southern Turkey, just hours before Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to arrive in Ankara for talks with Turkish officials.
Incirlik, in Turkey’s Adana province, has been used as a support base for operations in Iraq and Syria by the international coalition against the Islamic State and houses a number of US troops.
The protests in Turkey came as the death toll in Gaza reached 9,770 Palestinians, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said on Sunday.
The increase was driven by an Israeli expansion of the ground incursion inside northern Gaza and airstrikes across the territory. It came as Blinken made a surprise visit to the West Bank where he met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Abbas urged an “immediate ceasefire,” his spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh said.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a readout: “The Secretary also expressed the commitment of the United States to working toward the realization of the Palestinians’ legitimate aspirations for the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
The meeting lasted over an hour and comes as Washington is discussing plans for the day after the Israeli operation in Gaza. Abbas and the Palestinian Authority lost control of the enclave to Hamas in 2007.
According to Reuters, Blinken has suggested that an “effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority would make the most sense to ultimately run the strip but admitted that other countries and international agencies would likely play a role in security and governance in the interim.”
Separately, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan spoke with his Egyptian and Jordanian counterparts in separate phone calls on Sunday to discuss the situation in Gaza, hostage talks and a ceasefire.