The United States will send multiple military ships and aircraft closer to Israel as a show of support, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, with Washington believing Hamas' latest attack may have been motivated to disrupt a potential normalising of Israel-Saudi Arabia ties.
Hamas fighters rampaged through Israeli towns as the country suffered its bloodiest day in decades yesterday.
Israel battered Palestinians with air strikes in Gaza today, with hundreds reportedly killed on both sides.
The spiralling violence threatens to start a major new war in the Middle East.
Mr Austin also added that the United States will provide munitions to Israel, and that its security assistance will begin moving today.
The Pentagon will be adding fighter jets to the region as well, he said.
Joe Biden told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that additional assistance for the Israeli Defense Forces was on its way to Israel and more would follow in the coming days, the White House said after their call.
Mr Austin said he ordered moving a carrier strike group closer to Israel, which includes the Ford carrier and ships that support it.
"I have directed the movement of the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to the Eastern Mediterranean," he said in his statement.
The attack by Hamas launched at dawn yesterday represented the biggest and deadliest incursion into Israel since Egypt and Syria launched a sudden assault in an effort to reclaim lost territory in the Yom Kippur war 50 years ago.
"It wouldn't be a surprise that part of the motivation may have been to disrupt efforts to bring Saudi Arabia and Israel together, along with other countries that may be interested in normalising relations with Israel," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN.
Hamas said the attack was driven by what it called escalated Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and against Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh had highlighted threats to Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque, the continuation of an Israeli blockade on Gaza and Israeli normalisation with countries in the region.
Mr Netanyahu last month said he believed his country was on the cusp of peace with Saudi Arabia, predicting that the move could reshape the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam's two holiest shrines, has long insisted on the Palestinians' right to statehood as a condition of recognising Israel - something many members of Mr Netanyahu's nationalist religious coalition have long resisted.
The United States said that Saudi-Israel normalisation efforts should continue despite the latest attack.
"We think it would be in both countries' interests to continue to pursue this possibility," US Deputy National Security adviser Jon Finer told Fox News today.
Fighting continues in Gaza
Mr Blinken added that the United States has also taken note of reports of several Americans killed and kidnapped, and Washington is looking to verify the details and figures.
"We have reports that several Americans were killed. We're working overtime to verify that," Mr Blinken said.
Mr Blinken labelled the attack on Israel as a "terrorist attack by a terrorist organization."
Mr Blinken added that there was relative calm today in most of Israel but intense fighting in Gaza, an Israeli-blockaded Palestinian enclave that has witnessed weeks of protests by youth groups due to long-time grievances related to the Israeli military occupation, the Palestinian national cause and prolonged economic strife.
He added that there was not yet any evidence seen by the United States of Iran being behind the latest attack in Israel but he noted the long-standing ties between Iran and Hamas, which governs Gaza.
Iran reaction
Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi spoke today with leaders of Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, official media said.
"Raisi discussed the developments in Palestine in separate phone calls with Ziyad al-Nakhalah, secretary general of the Islamic Jihad Movement, and Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the (Hamas) political bureau," state news agency IRNA reported, without giving further details.
Iran had hailed the Palestinian attack calling it a "proud operation" and a "great victory".
"This victorious operation, which will facilitate and accelerate the collapse of the Zionist regime, promises the impending destruction of the Zionist regime," said Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
"I am congratulating this great and strategic victory, which is a serious warning to all compromisers in the region," he added in a letter to Hamas and Islamic Jihad yesterday.
The Islamic republic hosted talks with leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in June.
At the time, Mr Raisi said that Israel was seeking to normalise ties with more Arab and Muslim countries "to discourage young Palestinians from (seeking to) liberate the occupied territories", according to the Iranian presidency.
Yesterday, hundreds gathered in major cities in Iran, including in Tehran's Palestine Square, carrying the Palestinian flag and pictures of slain General Qasem Soleimani, who was assassinated in a US drone attack in Baghdad in 2020 after overseeing the Revolutionary Guards' foreign operations for more than a decade.
Large billboards celebrating the "Al-Aqsa Flood" operation were installed in Tehran including one that says "the great liberation operation has begun".
Crowds in some cities set off fireworks and torched Israeli flags while others carrying the Palestinian colours took to the streets while motorists honked their honks in jubilation, according to footage carried by the official IRNA news agency.
Iran does not recognise Israel and has made support for the Palestinian cause a centrepiece of its foreign policy ever since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
The two governments have engaged in a shadow war for years, with Iran accusing Israel of a series of sabotage attacks and assassinations targeting its nuclear programme.
UN Security Council
Numerous members of the UN Security Council denounced Hamas but the United States regretted the lack of unanimity.
At an emergency session, the United States and Israel urged strong condemnation of the Palestinian Islamists, who rule the blockaded Gaza Strip and launched a surprise assault on Saturday.
"There are a good number of countries that condemned the Hamas attacks. They're obviously not all," senior US diplomat Robert Wood told reporters after the closed-door session.
"You could probably figure out one of them without me saying anything," said Mr Wood, in a clear allusion to Russia, whose relations with the West have deteriorated sharply since its invasion of Ukraine.
Diplomats said the Security Council did not consider any joint statement, let alone a binding resolution, with members led by Russia hoping for a broader focus than condemning Hamas.
"My message was to stop the fighting immediately and to go to a ceasefire and to meaningful negotiations, which was told for decades" by the Security Council, said Vassily Nebenzia, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations.
"This is partly the result of unresolved issues," he said.
China, generally Russia's ally at the Security Council, said it would support a joint statement.
"It's abnormal that the Security Council doesn't say anything," Ambassador Zhang Jun said, who earlier promised Chinese support for a condemnation of "all attacks against civilians."
Entering the session, Israel's ambassador, Gilad Erdan, showed graphic pictures of Israeli civilians being taken captive by Hamas.
"These are war crimes - blatant, documented war crimes," Mr Erdan said.
"This unimaginable - unimaginable - atrocity must be condemned," he said of the Security Council.
"Israel must be given steadfast support to defend ourselves - to defend the free world."
The Palestinian ambassador -- who represents the West Bank-centred Palestinian Authority and not rival Hamas - called on the Security Council to focus on ending Israeli occupation.
"Regrettably, history for some media and politicians starts when Israelis are killed," said the envoy, Riyad Mansour.
"This is not a time to let Israel double-down on its terrible choices. This is a time to tell Israel it needs to change course, that there is a path to peace where neither Palestinians nor Israelis are killed."
