TEL AVIV – U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived Friday in the Israeli town of Tel Aviv to meet with senior govt leaders and see firsthand one of the U.S. weapons and security assistance that Washington all of a sudden delivered to Israel in the first week of its war with the militant Hamas group.
Austin is the second one high-level U.S. reliable to talk over with Israel in two days. His fast travel from Brussels, the place he used to be attending a NATO defense ministers assembly, comes an afternoon after Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in the area on Thursday. Blinken is proceeding the frantic Mideast international relations, in the hunt for to avert an expanded regional struggle.
Austin is anticipated to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, and the Israeli War Cabinet.
His arrival comes as Israel’s army directed hundreds of thousands of residents in Gaza City to evacuate “for their own safety and protection,” forward of a feared Israeli flooring offensive. Gaza’s Hamas rulers replied through calling on Palestinians to “stay steadfast in your houses and to stand company” against Israel.
Defense officials traveling with Austin said he wants to underscore America’s unwavering support for the people of Israel and that the United States is committed to making sure the country has what it needs to defend itself.
A senior defense official said the U.S. has already given Israel small diameter bombs as well as interceptor missiles for its Iron Dome system and more will be delivered. Other munitions are expected to arrive Friday.
Austin has spoken nearly daily with Gallant, and directed the rapid shift of U.S. ships, intelligence support and other assets to Israel and the region. Within hours after the brutal Hamas attack across the border into Israel, the U.S. moved warships and aircraft to the region.
The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier strike group is already in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and a second carrier was departing Friday from Virginia, also heading to the region.
Austin declined to say if the U.S. is doing surveillance flights in the region, but the U.S. is providing intelligence and other planning assistance to the Israelis, including advice on the hostage situation.
A day after visiting Israel to offer the Biden administration’s diplomatic support in person, Blinken was in Jordan on Friday for talks with Jordanian King Abdullah II and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who has a home in the Jordanian capital of Amman.
The monarch rules over a country with a large Palestinian population and has a vested interest in their status while Abbas runs the Palestinian Authority that controls the West Bank.
Later Friday, Blinken is to fly to Doha for meetings with Qatari officials who have close contacts with the Hamas leadership and have been exploring an exchange of Palestinian prisoners in Israel for the release of dozens of Israelis and foreigners taken hostage by Hamas during the unprecedented incursion of the militants into southern Israel last weekend.
Blinken will make a brief stop in Bahrain and end the day in Saudi Arabia, a key player in the Arab world that has been considering normalizing ties with Israel, a U.S.-mediated process that is now on hold.
He will also travel to the United Arab Emirates and Egypt over the weekend.
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Associated Press creator Matthew Lee in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this document.