Special Forces at the Ready: How the War in Gaza Brought the U.S. Back to the Middle East

Israel’s Operation Arnon to free a group of hostages from the Gaza Strip has brought back into focus just how deeply the U.S. military is involved in the eight-month-long escalation of the conflict. Since October 2023, allied commitments to Israel have indeed forced the U.S. to gradually expand its military footprint in this Middle East conflict. The unprecedented deployment of U.S. special operations forces to Israeli territory, the Pentagon’s intelligence support for the targeting of Hamas leaders, and the dispatch of 1,000 troops to the Eastern Mediterranean to operate a floating pier leave the impression that Washington’s mission in the conflict is not clearly defined.

The U.S. may well be pushed by the situation with the shrinking operational space in the Gulf states to probe new points of support in the region. In May, Israeli media reported that—once the fighting in the southern parts of the enclave ends—control of the key Rafah border crossing may be delegated to an unnamed U.S. private military company that employs former special forces with experience in protecting strategically important sites in Africa and the Middle East.

This means that the U.S. will continue to cement its role in the Gaza conflict as a full-fledged military player, contrary to its promises not to be engaged in “endless military deployments.” Such activity may be an opportunity to control Israel’s actions, but it is unlikely to have a favorable effect on the mediation efforts of U.S. diplomacy.

Israel’s Operation Arnon to free a group of hostages from the Gaza Strip has brought back into focus just how deeply the U.S. military is involved in the eight-month-long escalation of the conflict. The bloody infiltration into the Nuseirat refugee camp—where four Israelis who have now returned home were held—was partly organized due to direct intelligence support from Israel’s foreign allies: data exchange involved U.S. and British officers based in the Jewish State since the beginning of the hostilities in Gaza, who had been gathering information on the whereabouts of hostages.

This raised the question of whether U.S. troops “on the ground” were engaged in the operation. U.S. officials even had to issue a separate statement saying that the Nuseirat raid, a joint effort by a special unit of the Israeli police, the General Security Service Special Forces and the Israeli army, was carried out without direct involvement of the U.S. military. Moreover, Pentagon officials were quick to spread the claim that the floating pier its personnel had constructed over the months off the coast of the Gaza Strip to open a humanitarian sea corridor “had nothing to do with Operation Arnon.” Skeptics were not convinced by those explanations, though: in the Arab and Iranian media, the U.S. side was portrayed as a full-fledged military actor in Gaza deemed responsible, among other things, for civilian casualties in Nuseirat.

Since October 2023, allied commitments to Israel have indeed forced the U.S. to gradually expand its military footprint in this Middle East conflict. The unprecedented deployment of U.S. special operations forces to Israeli territory, the Pentagon’s intelligence support for the targeting of Hamas leaders, and the dispatch of 1,000 troops to the Eastern Mediterranean to operate a floating pier leave the impression that Washington’s mission in the conflict is not clearly defined.

Largest deployment

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Following Joe Biden’s visit to Tel Aviv on October 18, 2023, the White House press office released unretouched photos depicting the American leader meeting with several members of the Delta Force, one of the U.S. military’s main counterterrorism units. Along with them, members of SEAL Team 6, another equally famous unit within the Navy, were spotted on Israeli territory.

Although these elite groups have a long history of interaction with the Israelis, U.S. officials described in private conversations their presence since Oct. 7 as one of the largest deployments in the history of the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command.

It was claimed that the main mission of the Special Forces stationed in the Jewish State was to help identify and search for hostages taken by Hamas during the October 7 ground invasion. To gather information in the war zone, the U.S. used its MQ-9 Reaper reconnaissance and combat drones, which, according to official assurances, were not armed.

At the same time, officials were discriminate enough to suggest that there could be “unforeseen circumstances” whereby Delta and Navy SEALs would directly intervene in hostage liberation operations in the territory of Gaza, despite the fact that the Israeli officialdom has opposed the presence of foreign troops in the Palestinian enclave from the very beginning, considering the conflict solely its own zone of responsibility.

The duration of hostilities between Israel and Hamas has gradually forced the Biden administration to place more emphasis on the military component. Beyond the immediate conflict, Washington has demonstrated its unambiguous inclination toward military intervention. Thus, the U.S. and UK initiated in January 2024 a large-scale campaign to contain the Houthi movement Ansar Allah, launching massive strikes on its positions in Yemen in response to this movement’s desire to demonstrate active solidarity with Hamas by cutting off international shipping lanes in the zone of access.

The U.S. authorities seem to have decided to toughen their approach to the very sovereignty of Gaza. In May 2024, Western sources reported that the Pentagon had shared intelligence with the Israeli army on the whereabouts of senior Hamas officials and the location of underground tunnels, seriously believing that weakening the group’s top ranks would help narrow the geographical scope of the ally’s military campaign.

Pier maintenance

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The Biden administration’s concept of opening a sea corridor to the Gaza Strip required a separate intervention. Washington proposed a pier floating off the coast that would enable the distribution of aid relief from a facility in Cyprus. Specifically for the purpose of setting up and maintaining the platform in the Eastern Mediterranean, some 1,000 U.S. military personnel were deployed there to operate near the Palestinian enclave without entering its territory.

The contingent that appeared off the coast of Gaza exceeded the number of U.S. military personnel operating in areas outside the control of the central government in Syria (about 900 people), which could not but give an impression of the U.S. stepping up its game in the Middle East.

It would be an exaggeration to say that Washington did not see the risks to its troops servicing the sea corridor. The Phalanx C-RAM Phalanx system installed near the pier could strike and destroy missiles, drones or aircraft within a short radius. The M-LIDS mobile integrated drone defense system that appeared on the pier also caught the eyes.

Speculations that the U.S. contingent might be drawn into hostilities arose due to the proximity of mortar shelling to the area where the floating pier was to dock.

However, it was not members of Palestinian militias but weather conditions and ill-conceived logistics that caused difficulties in the implementation of this humanitarian initiative. Less than two weeks after the Pentagon began using the $320 million worth platform, the distribution of aid was frozen due to a structural failure. Although U.S. forces managed to have restored the integrity of the pier shortly before the start of Operation Arnon, international humanitarian organizations decided not to rush with the resumption of aid deliveries through the sea corridor, citing the need to reassess the security situation.

The concept of a maritime pier emerged as a means of establishing control over the degraded humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and as an alternative to land crossings blocked by the Israeli leadership. However, the maritime platform turned into an unjustifiable resource-intensive project that required a significant number of U.S. military personnel and failed to live up to its expectations: during the initial weeks following the setup of the pier, the Pentagon had to admit that the aid delivered through the maritime corridor never reached the broader civilian population of Gaza.

Repudiation of promises

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The issue of reducing the number of U.S. forces deployed in the Middle East has long been among the priority dossiers discussed behind closed doors in Washington’s influential think tanks. Particular attention in this context is paid to the presence in Syria.

The trend towards optimizing the military presence, which was expected to gain a broader impetus after the withdrawal of the coalition from Afghanistan in 2021, would be in line with Joe Biden’s promise “not to repeat the mistakes” of previous presidential administrations and not to “remake countries through the endless military deployment of U.S. forces.” Nevertheless, the struggle with the consequences of the protracted Israeli operation in Gaza seems to be forcing the White House to abandon the course of saving military resources and tighten oversight over the actions of its Middle Eastern ally, which is sabotaging recommendations that run contrary to the interests of the survival of the Netanyahu-headed government coalition.

By and large, the groundwork for this dynamic had been laid shortly before the invasion of Israel, which Hamas members initiated on October 7. Two months before the war began, the Pentagon had awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to build new facilities for its Israeli base, Site 512, documents getting into the hands of The Intercept periodical providing the clear evidence. They indicate that the secret military facility located in the Negev Desert, not far from the Gaza Strip, will expand, and, according to journalists, the presence of U.S. military forces in Israel will also increase.

The U.S. may well be pushed by the situation with the shrinking operational space in the Gulf states to probe new points of support in the region. After the inception of the U.S.-British strikes on Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates tried to restrict the U.S. military from using military facilities in their territories, seeking to prevent further strikes against the Ansar Allah group and Shiite paramilitary formations in Iraq.

The debate over the post-war arrangements in Gaza is unlikely to put an end to the controversy about a possible U.S. presence “on the ground.” In May, Israeli media reported that—once the fighting in the southern parts of the enclave ends—control of the key Rafah border crossing may be delegated to an unnamed U.S. private military company that employs former special forces with experience in protecting strategically important sites in Africa and the Middle East.

This means that the U.S. will continue to cement its role in the Gaza conflict as a full-fledged military player, contrary to its promises not to be engaged in “endless military deployments.” Such activity may be an opportunity to control Israel’s actions, but it is unlikely to have a favorable effect on the mediation efforts of U.S. diplomacy.