In an unprecedented move, the Pentagon published a picture of the Ohio-class submarine close to Cairo.
Iran threatened to “hit hard” the United States if no effort was made to press for a truce in Gaza, so they moved the assault submarine.
The United States has dispatched a guided missile submarine to the Middle East subsequent to Iran’s threat to “hit hard” America should it fail to press for a truce in Gaza.
The Pentagon released a picture of the Ohio-class submarine, which is located in the Suez Canal to the north of Cairo and is capable of firing Tomahawk cruise missiles, in an unusual revelation.
Since Hamas’s horrible attack on Israel on October 7, the United States has increased its military presence in the region.
Numerous aircraft capable of conducting airstrikes, as well as two aircraft carriers, the largest in the world (the USS Gerald R. Ford), have been dispatched to the eastern Mediterranean.
Tensions are at an all-time high as the submarine, which is capable of carrying 154 Tomahawk missiles with warheads that can contain up to 1,000 pounds of explosives, is being transported.
The picture was uploaded as Iran’s Defence Minister, Mohammed-Reza Ashtiani, charged that the United States was “militarily involved” in the Israel-Hamas conflict and urged the Biden administration to press for a truce.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, meanwhile, increased his diplomacy by travelling around the Middle East.
After arriving in Ankara on Sunday night, he met with delegations on Monday morning and had discussions with Turkey’s Hakan Fidan.
With Israeli troops encircling Gaza City and cutting off the northern portion of the beleaguered region controlled by Hamas, Blinken’s shuttle diplomacy came at a time when troops were scheduled to approach the city on Monday or Tuesday, where they would likely encounter terrorists fighting street by street through an extensive network of tunnels.
Blinken wrote on X, “Today I will meet with [Turkish] government leaders as we seek to prevent the conflict in Gaza from spreading and find ways to increase the flow of humanitarian assistance.”
Blinken and Fidan met for two and a half hours, according to a U.S. State Department official.
The State Department further stated that Washington was’very aggressively’ trying to increase the quantity of aid that was getting to Gaza’s stranded residents.
‘We have made good progress in recent days on expanding’ the supplies to Gaza, Blinken stated after the negotiations, adding that a ‘break [in combat] could help that as well’.
President Tayyip Erdogan, who has attacked the United States for its “unlimited support to Israel,” and Blinken were not to speak.
With ‘humanitarian pauses’ aimed at averting a wider regional crisis, Washington has stepped its diplomatic efforts.
Over the course of a hectic weekend, he visited Jordan, the occupied West Bank, Cyprus, and Iraq.
As the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza has worsened, Turkey, a NATO member that favours a two-state solution in the Middle East, has drastically increased its condemnation of Israel.
Additionally, Ankara does not consider Hamas to be a terrorist outfit, despite the fact that Western nations do.
More than 9,770 Palestinians have died in the conflict, which started on October 7 when Hamas killed 1,400 people and took over 240 captives in southern Israel, according to health officials in Gaza, which is under Hamas control.
“Everything is a work in progress,” Blinken remarked prior to departing from Turkey.
While there are clearly differences between our opinions on many of the pressing issues that we are collaborating on, there are also points of agreement.
“We are making every effort to bring the Americans and other hostages held by Hamas home,” the statement reads.
As the Blinken-Fidan meeting began, scores of demonstrators from an Islamist organisation stood outside the Foreign Ministry waving Palestinian and Turkish flags and brandishing anti-Israel and anti-US signs.
A group of students who were yelling, “murderer Blinken, get out of Turkey!” as they marched towards the ministry earlier on Monday were scattered by police.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators and Turkish riot police battled outside the US-Turkish Incirlik military air station in the southern city of Adana on Sunday, marking the start of the second day of protests against Blinken’s visit.
As the protesters attempted to cross fields and access the base, police responded with water cannons and tear gas.
Blinken’s trip, his second visit to the area since the start of the war, has encountered little to no assistance for his attempts to manage the aftermath of the fighting.
While Arab and Muslim countries are calling for a rapid cease-fire as the number of Palestinian civilian casualties from Israeli shelling rises, Israel has rejected the idea of pauses.
By defending civilians and greatly increasing relief supplies to Gaza’s struggling civilian population, US officials hope to persuade Israel of the strategic value of adhering to the laws of war.
But it was still uncertain if Netanyahu would consent to short-term, rolling pauses in the huge effort to destroy Hamas, or whether doing so would ease the anger of Palestinians and their allies.
Jordan and Turkey have already sent back their ambassadors to Israel in protest of its policies, and as images of death and devastation in Gaza circulate throughout the world in the wake of October 7, it seems that public opinion is shifting away from sympathy for Israel and towards disgust.
The foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan met with Blinken at a joint news conference on Saturday in Amman, the capital of Jordan.
According to the two, Israel’s war on the Palestinian people could no longer be justified because it had transcended self-defense and now amounted to collective punishment.
Tens of thousands of protestors who marched in the streets of major international cities over the weekend to express their disapproval of US backing for Israel and to denounce Israel shared that attitude.
Following his talks in Turkey, Blinken will travel to Asia, where a number of geopolitical issues, such as North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme and Russia’s assault on Ukraine, will likely take front stage alongside the Gaza crisis during a series of events in Japan, South Korea, and India.
After meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, Blinken took a plane to Baghdad to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.
Dozens of Palestinians demonstrated in the West Bank city of Ramallah after news of Blinken’s visit circulated.
They carried placards that said, “Blinken blood is on your hands,” and featured images of blood trickling.
After the meeting with Abbas, no statement was made to the public.
Areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank that are semiautonomous are governed by the Palestinian Authority.
Since 2007, when Hamas took over the Gaza Strip after winning elections there the previous year, it has not played a role in the region.
Iranian-allied militias have increased their attacks on US personnel in the region, both in Iraq and other places.
According to a U.S. official, US forces shot down another one-way attack drone on Sunday that was aiming for coalition and American soldiers close to their base in neighbouring Syria.
The Biden administration is trying to use its influence with Israel to try to lessen the impact of Israel’s weeks-long complete siege and nearly constant air, ground, and sea attacks in Gaza, home to 2.3 million civilians, even though it is still the strongest supporter of Israel’s military response to Hamas’ attacks on October 7.
Arab nations, outraged at the civilian casualties of Israeli military operations and convinced that Israel is mostly to blame for Gaza’s problems, are rejecting American proposals that they take a more active role in resolving the crisis.
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