US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived Friday in Israel to meet with senior government leaders and see firsthand some of the US weapons and security assistance that Washington rapidly delivered to Israel in the first week of its war with the Hamas terror group.
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Austin is the second high-level US official to visit Israel in two days. His quick trip from Brussels, where he was attending a NATO defense ministers meeting, comes a day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in the region on Thursday. Blinken is continuing the frantic Mideast diplomacy, seeking to avert an expanded regional conflict.
Austin is expected to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and the Israeli War Cabinet.
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 US 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.
Video: PM meets US Secretary of Defense Llyod Austin / Credit: GPO/X/@israelipm
Austin has spoken nearly daily with Gallant, and directed the rapid shift of US ships, intelligence support and other assets to Israel and the region. Within hours after the brutal Hamas attack across the border into Israel, the US 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 US is doing surveillance flights in the region, but the US 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 and held talks with Jordanian King Abdullah II. They did not speak to reporters after the meeting. Blinken then went on to a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has a home in Amman, the Jordanian capital.
In the meeting with the king, Blinken discussed Hamas' attack last Saturday and efforts to release all hostages the terrorists seized, as well as efforts to "prevent the conflict from widening," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.
Blinken "underscored that Hamas does not stand for the Palestinian people's right to dignity and self-determination and discussed ways to address the humanitarian needs of civilians in Gaza while Israel conducts legitimate security operations to defend itself from terrorism."
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.
According to a palace statement, Abdullah stressed the need to open humanitarian corridors for medical aid and relief into Gaza while protecting civilians and working to end the escalation of the conflict. He appealed against hindering the work of international agencies and warned against any attempts to forcibly displace Palestinians from Gaza and elsewhere, or to cause their internal displacement.
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Earlier on Friday, Israel's military had told some 1 million Palestinians living in Gaza to evacuate the north, according to the United Nations — an unprecedented order for almost half the population of the sealed-off territory ahead an expected ground invasion by Israel against the ruling Hamas.
The king also urged for the protection of innocent civilians on all sides, in line with shared human values, international law, and international humanitarian law.
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 US-mediated process that is now on hold.
He will also travel to the United Arab Emirates and Egypt over the weekend.
