The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier strike group will leave the eastern Mediterranean Sea, where it was sent just after the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October, in the "coming days," two US officials told ABC News on Sunday.
The Ford is the US Navy's newest and largest aircraft carrier and was nearing the end of its first operational deployment when it was redirected to the eastern Mediterranean the day after Hamas terrorists launched an unprecedented surprise attack on Israel on October 7.
The two US officials told ABC News that in the "coming days," the carrier and other surface ships that make up the strike group will return to the carrier's home port of Norfolk, Virginia, as originally scheduled so it could prepare for future deployments.
A senior US official stressed that the carrier's return will keep to that schedule and that even with the Ford's departure, the United States will still have a lot of military capability in the region and flexibility, including the deployment of additional cruisers and destroyers in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.
"We have nothing to announce today," said a Defense Department spokesman when contacted for comment.
Days after sending the USS Ford to the region, the Pentagon also ordered the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower to the region. The carrier was ordered to the Persian Gulf region to deter Iran from broadening the war between Israel and Hamas.
The Eisenhower remains deployed to the Middle East and is currently in the Gulf of Aden east of Yemen, where tensions have risen in recent weeks as Houthi rebels have used drones and ballistic missiles to attack commercial shipping in the Red Sea region, according to ABC News.