US to send warships to Middle East as fears of Iran-Israel conflict grow

Tehran has vowed ‘harsh punishment’ on Israel after assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh

The US will send warships and fighter jets to the Middle East to help defend Israel amid growing fears of a conflict with Iran and its proxies.

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said navy cruisers and destroyers – which can shoot down ballistic missiles – as well as fighter jets, would be deployed to the region to support Israel.

It comes after Iran vowed to exact “harsh punishment” on Israel following the suspected assassination of Hamas’s chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in a blast in Tehran on Thursday.

The death of the 62-year-old came just hours after Israel claimed it had killed top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in an airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon, in the same week.

Gaza’s Hamas and Hezbollah (which controls southern Lebanon) form part of Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance” – which opposes Western and Israeli influence in the region.

Thousands of Iranians took to the streets to mourn the death of Ismail Haniyeh this week (AP)

Israel has not claimed responsibility for Haniyeh’s death, but officials have previously warned they would target all Hamas leaders responsible for the 7 October attack on southern Israel that triggered Israel’s war in Gaza.

The Pentagon said: “Mr Austin has ordered adjustments to US military posture designed to improve US force protection, to increase support for the defence of Israel, and to ensure the United States is prepared to respond to various contingencies.”

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah also said it was looking into a response to the killing of its chief Fuad Shukr, saying the conflict had “entered a new phase that is different from the previous period”.

“Do they expect that Hajj Ismail Haniyeh will be killed in Iran and Iran will remain silent?” he said of the Israelis. Addressing Israelis who celebrated the two killings, he said, “Laugh a bit and you will cry a lot.”

But as he often does, Nasrallah kept his comments vague, vowing a “very well studied retaliation” without saying what form it would take. He said only that Israel “will have to wait for the anger of the region’s honorable people”.

He added: “The enemy and the one who is behind the enemy [an apparent reference to Israel’s chief ally, the United States] will have to wait for our coming response.”

Hezbollah fighters carry the coffin of chief Fuad Shukr, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike last week (AP)

The US military stepped-up deployments before, on 13 April, when Iran launched an attack on Israel with drones and missiles. Israel and its allies shot down almost all of roughly 300 drones and missiles that were fired.

At least 10 Palestinians were killed on Saturday in an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced persons in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, the Hamas run-government media office said.

In the occupied West Bank, a Hamas commander and four Islamic Jihad fighters were also killed in an Israeli airstrike, according to the militant group.

At least 39,550 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military campaign in Gaza. The offensive was triggered by a Hamas attack on southern Israel on 7 October in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 abducted.