"No Intervention in Preemptive Attacks"
On the 25th (local time), the United States expressed its readiness to support Israel, which has launched a preemptive strike against the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
On the same day, the U.S. Department of Defense stated that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had a conversation with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant regarding Israel's defense against Hezbollah's attacks.
The U.S. Department of Defense said, "Secretary Austin reaffirmed America's unwavering commitment to assist Israel in defending its sovereign right to self-defense and countering threats from Iran and Iran's regional proxies and collaborators."
Secretary Austin also ordered two U.S. carrier strike groups in the Middle East to remain in the region to support Israel's defense. As a result, two carrier strike groups led respectively by the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Theodore Roosevelt will carry out missions in the Middle East for the time being. Originally, the plan was for the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, which arrived in the Middle East on the 21st, to relieve the Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group that had been operating there.
Meanwhile, Israel declared a state of emergency across the country for 48 hours starting from 6 a.m. on the same day after announcing it had carried out a preemptive strike against Lebanon.
In this context, the United States stated that it helped Israel detect Hezbollah rockets and drones but did not participate in the preemptive strike. A U.S. official said, "We did not intervene in Israel's (Hezbollah) preemptive strike last night," adding, "We provided some intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) support necessary to track Hezbollah's attacks on Israel from Lebanon, but we did not conduct any physical operations."
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