About 5,000 sailors deployed Saturday from Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower for a long-scheduled deployment but one that comes amid new tensions in the Mediterranean, The Virginian-Pilot reported.
“I am scared,” a deployed sailor’s spouse told the paper. “It’s real now.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Saturday that the Eisenhower carrier strike group’s positioning in the eastern Mediterranean is part of an “effort to deter hostile actions against Israel or any efforts toward widening this war,” according to Navy Times.
The Ike will join the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group in the region. Austin said in a Saturday press release that the U.S. has already sent military aid to Israel and will continue to provide anything it needs.
“The world is watching,” he said. “So are we. And we aren’t going anywhere.”
The Senate is expected to begin drafting an aid package for Israel this week, despite uncertainty about when the House will have a Speaker and be able to conduct its own business.
“We will not just talk, we will act,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said over the weekend in Tel Aviv, as Punchbowl News reported. “We will work to move this aid through the Senate ASAP, and the Israeli leaders made it clear to us they need the aid quickly.”
Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Anderson W. Branch
