Fears of a regional Middle East war grew on Saturday after the assassination of Hamas's political leader, blamed on Israel, triggered vows of vengeance from Iran-backed Middle East groups.
The United States said it would move additional warships and fighter jets to the region as the Iran-aligned "Axis of Resistance" readied its response to the killing of Ismail Haniyeh.
The groups from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria have already been drawn into the nearly 10-month war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian movement Hamas, according to AFP.
Iran on Saturday said it expects one of those groups, Lebanon's Hezbollah, to hit deeper inside Israel and to no longer be confined to military targets.
With such talk growing, the Pentagon said it was bolstering its military presence in the Middle East to protect US personnel and defend Israel.
An aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln will replace one helmed by the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the region, the Pentagon said.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also ordered additional ballistic missile defence-capable cruisers and destroyers to the Middle East and areas under United States European Command, as well as a new fighter squadron to the Middle East.
On Friday, thousands of people in Qatar attended funeral prayers for Haniyeh, who was buried north of the capital Doha two days after his death.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Saturday said he was killed by a "short-range projectile" fired "from outside the accommodation area" where he was staying.
Haniyeh had been in Iran to attend the swearing-in of President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday.
Israel, accused by Hamas, Iran and others of the attack, has not directly commented on it.
The killing of the Qatar-based Haniyeh is among a series of tit-for-tat attacks since April that had already heightened fears of a regional conflagration.
His death came hours after Israel struck south Beirut, killing the Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr.
Haniyeh's deputy was killed in south Beirut early this year in a strike which a US defence official said Israel carried out.
In another high-profile killing, Israel's army on Thursday confirmed that an air strike in July killed Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif in Gaza.
Israel "delivered crushing blows to all our enemies", said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week.
"The risk that the situation on the ground could deteriorate rapidly is rising," British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in a statement.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met with his visiting British counterpart John Healey on Friday and called for an international coalition to support "Israel's defense against Iran and its proxies", Gallant's office said.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation for its October 7 attack.
Hamas officials but also some analysts, and protesters in Israel, have accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war.
Far-right members crucial to Netanyahu's ruling coalition oppose any truce.
The war in Gaza has caused widespread destruction and displaced almost the entire population of the territory where, the UN said on Friday, public health conditions "continue to deteriorate."
It said nearly 40,000 cases of Hepatitis A, spread by contaminated food and water, have been reported since the war began.
Since October Hezbollah has been exchanging near-daily fire with Israeli forces, saying it is targeting military positions over the border in support of Hamas.
The strike on Shukr changed the calculus, Iran's mission to the United Nations said on Saturday.
"We expect... Hezbollah to choose more targets and (strike) deeper in its response," said the mission, quoted by Iran's official IRNA news agency.
"Secondly, that it will not limit its response to military targets."
A Lebanese security source, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media, said a Hezbollah member was killed in an "Israeli drone" strike on a vehicle in south Lebanon on Saturday.
Late on Friday, a source close to Hezbollah said Israel carried out strikes on a convoy of trucks entering Lebanon from Syria.
