US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier and one other warship to remain in the Mediterranean Sea for several more weeks to maintain a two-carrier presence near Israel as its war with Hamas grinds on, US officials said.

It would be the third time the Ford’s deployment has been extended, underscoring the continued concerns about volatility in the region during Israel’s war in Gaza. The US has two aircraft carriers in the region, a rarity in recent years.

Multiple US officials confirmed the longer deployments approved this week for the Ford and the USS Normandy cruiser on condition of anonymity because they have not yet been made public. Other ships in the Ford’s strike group had already had their deployments extended.

The Pentagon ramped up its military presence in the region after Hamas’s devastating October 7 attacks –in which Palestinian terrorists killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel, most of them civilians slaughtered in their homes and at a music festival, and took around 240 hostage — to deter Iran from widening the war into a regional conflict. In the months since, the Hezbollah terror group and allied Palestinian factions in Lebanon have launched repeated cross-border attacks on Israel, drawing Israeli reprisals in response.

Iranian-backed militants in Iraq and Syria have also seized on the Israel-Hamas war to conduct regular attacks with rockets, drones and missiles on US military installations there.

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