Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Q. Brown, arrived on Saturday in the Middle East on a surprise visit to deter any type of broader escalation.
His arrival came as the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza reported that at least 50 Palestinians were killed by Israeli airstrikes targeting the enclave.
Brown began his trip in Jordan and said he will also travel to Egypt and Israel in the coming days to hear the perspectives of military leaders.
His visit comes as the United States is trying to clinch a Gaza ceasefire-for-hostages deal between Israel and Hamas, which Brown said would “help bring down the temperature,” if achieved.
“At the same time, as I talk to my counterparts, what are the things we can do to deter any type of broader escalation and ensure we're taking all the appropriate steps to [avoid]... a broader conflict,” Brown told Reuters before landing in Jordan.
US President Joe Biden's administration has been seeking to limit the fallout from the war in Gaza between Hamas and Israel, now in its 11th month.
In addition to the ongoing conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the war triggered border clashes between Israel and Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah and sparked attacks by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis on Red Sea shipping.
Meanwhile, US troops have been attacked by Iran-aligned militia in Syria, Iraq, and Jordan.
In recent weeks, the US military has been bolstering its forces in the Middle East to guard against major new attacks by Iran or its allies, sending the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group into the region to replace the Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group.
The United States has also sent an Air Force F-22 Raptor squadron into the region and deployed a cruise missile submarine.
“We brought in additional capability to send a strong message to deter a broader conflict ... but also to protect our forces should they be attacked,” Brown said, saying safeguarding American forces was “paramount.”
Meanwhile, Israeli military strikes in Gaza killed 50 people on Saturday, Palestinian health authorities said, with victims trapped under rubble or lying on roads where fighting continued.
The UN also said the humanitarian situation in Gaza deteriorated, with malnutrition soaring and polio discovered in the Palestinian enclave.
Continuing the war will worsen the plight of Gaza's 2.3 million people, nearly all of them homeless in tents or shelters among the ruins, with malnutrition rampant and disease spreading, and risk the lives of the remaining Israeli hostages.
UN humanitarian agency OCHA said in a Friday update that the amount of food aid entering Gaza in July was one of the lowest since October, when Israel imposed a full siege.
OCHA said that in July the number of children with acute malnutrition in northern Gaza was four times higher than in May, while in the more accessible south, where fighting is less severe, the number more than doubled.
The World Health Organization said on Friday that a 10-month-old baby had been paralyzed with polio, the first such case in the territory in 25 years, raising fears of a wider outbreak given the lack of proper sanitation for people living in ruins.
