Eilat, Israel, traditionally a vacation hub located close to Egypt and Saudi Arabia, is now hosting the amphibious transport dock Portland, which in October transited the Strait of Hormuz with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

A Marine logistics battalion, rifle company, light armored reconnaissance company and a high mobility artillery rocket system, or HIMARS, platoon arrived with the group. The Marines will train with Israeli counterterrorism and other elite units, including the Maglan commando unit.

The Marines, assigned to Light Armored Reconnaissance Company, Battalion Landing Team 1/1, offloaded an LAV-25 from the Portland on Monday.

The drill is dubbed Israel Interoperability Exercise 21, and is led by the Israeli Defense Forces ground forces, involving around 500 personnel from the 11th MEU.

The U.S. described it as “a robust demonstration of both nations’ commitment to stability in the region.”

The exercise comes after the shift to CENTCOM area of operations from European Command ― and after increased joint F-35 drills, called Enduring Lightning, took place in 2020.

It was made possible in part by Israel’s new normalization and peace deals with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, where key U.S. forces are based for CENTCOM. This includes the Fifth fleet and air base at Al-Dhafra.

US Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, said the forces were from U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and are participating in the amphibious exercise.

The drill involves urban terrain operations and HIMARS alongside rapid maneuvering training, “as well as professional exchanges on various topics including engineering, medical and explosive ordinance disposal,” NAVCENT said in a statement.

NAVCENT said that the Task Force 51/5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade is leading U.S. participation in the three-week exercise.

“This exercise is part of the next chapter in the U.S. Navy’s and Marine Corps’ longstanding relationship with Israel that is so vital to stability and security in the region,” said Brig. Gen. Farrell Sullivan, commanding general of the task force.

An important time for Israel

The training comes at an important time for Israel, as the country has been increasing the number of joint drills it has with foreign countries.

During the Blue Flag exercise in the second half of October, air force assets from the U.K., U.S., Germany, Italy, Greece, France and India participated.

Photographs in Germany also appeared to show Jordan participating without public acknowledgement.

The commander of the United Arab Emirates Air Force, Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Nasser Mohammed Al Alawi, also came to the Blue Flag training. Along with Israel’s Air Force head Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin, the commanders discussed developing cooperation and strengthening relations between the two air forces.

In early October, U.S. Fifth Fleet commander of Vice Admiral Brad Cooper also visited Israel. He met Israel Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi, as well as Vice Admiral David Saar Salama.

It was his second visit to Israel since May 2020. At the same time the U.S. destroyer O’Kane docked in Haifa, Israel.

In August, Israel and the U.S. Fifth Fleet conducted the first Noble Waters exercise in the Red Sea.

“During the exercise, the two navies practiced a variety of scenarios including defense and rescue operations,” Israel’s IDF said on Aug. 31. ”The exercise saw the two navies working side by side, learning together and strengthening the connection and familiarity of the two nations’ fleets.”

Two days after the announcement of the Noble Waters drill, Israel’s Kohavi spoke with CENTCOM head Gen. Frank McKenzie about Israel’s realignment to the new command.

The August maritime patrol included the Israeli navy corvette INS Eilat and the U.S. guided-missile cruiser Monterey.

They patrolled in the Gulf of Aqaba in what CENTCOM called a “milestone” in cooperation at the time.

This also comes at a time of increasing tensions in the region between Israel and Iran, and frequent discussions between Israel and the U.S. regarding Iran and other regional issues.

For instance, Israel and the U.S. have been working more closely with Greece in the Eastern Mediterranean.

On Nov. 2 Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz spoke with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

“I had an important discussion with my friend and partner Secretary of Defense Austin about US-Israel coordination vis-à-vis Iranian regional entrenchment and its nuclear aspirations,” Gantz said. “We agreed to meet soon to deepen our discussion on strategic issues and military cooperation.”

The Iran tensions were revealed Wednesday when Iran said it had prevented “piracy” against a fuel tanker, and claimed the U.S. had tried to interdict its oil exports.

Several days earlier, a U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer had conducted a “presence patrol” with escorts from Israel, Bahrain, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. This came after the U.S. garrison at al-Tanf in Syria was targeted by Iranian drones.

Israel often uses airstrikes to target Iranian weapon shipments via Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

As the Marines arrived in Eilat, Israel was also holding a nationwide drill focused on preparation for possible multifront war.

This could include facing off against thousands of rockets fired by Hezbollah.

The joint drill, which lasted until Thursday, included elements of Israel’s National Emergency Management Authority and the Home Front Command, together with the Israel police, fire and rescue authority and all government ministries.

The Maglan commando unit in Israel, known as unit 212, is an elite unit that conducts reconnaissance behind enemy lines.

It is part of Israel’s Commando Brigade, along with other elite units.

In 2018 more than 600 Marines trained with Israelis in Juniper Cobra on close urban combat and tunnel warfare operations.

After losing the trust and confidence of the Secretary of Defense, Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer was asked Sunday to tender his resignation and exit the Pentagon.

In a prepared statement emailed to Navy Times, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said that Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper became concerned about Spencer’s “lack of candor over conversations with the White House involving the handling of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher,” an inside deal Spencer allegedly concocted with President Donald J. Trump.

Esper has asked Trump to consider Kenneth Braithwaite, the current U.S. ambassador to Norway and a retired Navy rear admiral, as the 77th Secretary of the Navy.

According to Hoffman, Esper and Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke with Trump on Friday about what had become a pivotal moment in the history of traditional civil-military relations.

The president had tweeted he would shield Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward “Eddie” Gallagher from what was widely perceived to be a punitive Trident Review Board set up by Rear Adm. Collin Green, the commander of Naval Special Warfare.

At issue was whether Green’s chosen panel could strip Gallagher of his coveted SEAL trident nearly five months after he was convicted at a July court-martial trial of posing in a photograph near a dead Islamic State prisoner of war.

Trump had intervened multiple times in Gallagher’s case, including restoring his chief’s anchors after he had been demoted to petty officer first class following his conviction.

Hoffman disclosed Sunday that Spencer was saying one thing in public about supporting Green’s pitch to let the process play out — a policy favored by Esper — but in reality he’d previously proposed to Trump to restore Gallagher’s pay grade and allow him to retire with his trident pin.

“When recently asked by Secretary Esper, Secretary Spencer confirmed that despite multiple conversations on the Gallagher matter, Secretary Esper was never informed by Secretary Spencer of his private proposal,” Hoffman said.

After all the drama of the past week, Esper now has decided to let Gallagher keep his trident.

He’ll meet with Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday and Navy Under Secretary Thomas Modly — now the acting secretary — to figure out how to move forward.

“I am deeply troubled by this conduct shown by a senior DOD official.” said Secretary Esper in the statement. “Unfortunately, as a result I have determined that Secretary Spencer no longer has my confidence to continue in his position. I wish Richard well.”

It’s unclear if Esper will halt similar proceedings against three officers tied to the Gallagher case.

Spencer’s spokesperson, Cmdr. Sarah Higgins, told Navy Times that Spencer would not be making a statement at this time on the latest revelations.

However, a letter of resignation dated Sunday and purported to have been signed by Spencer and distributed by CNN and other outlets tells a different story than the one pushed by the Pentagon.

Calling the need to preserve good order and discipline a “deadly serious business,” the letter indicates that Spencer had come to believe Trump didn’t share his perspective.

“I cannot in good conscience obey an order that I believe violates the sacred oath I took in the presence of my family, my flag and my faith to support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” the letter states.

Only moments after the release of Spencer’s resignation letter, however, Trump took to Twitter to give another version of the Sunday meltdown.

Noting his displeasure with the Navy’s handling of the Gallagher affair, Trump added his concerns about Spencer’s failure to address cost overruns and contracting problems from the former administration and then said that’s why Esper “terminated” his employment.

He thanked Spencer for his service and commitment but promised Gallagher “will retire peacefully with all of the honors that he has earned.”

The president added that he would nominate Braithwaite as the next Navy secretary.

“A man of great achievement and success, I know Ken will do an outstanding job!” Trump tweeted.

Plot twist: What none of the parties knew was that minutes before the Pentagon announced Esper’s decision, Gallagher told his attorney, Timothy Parlatore, that he had decided to voluntarily relinquish his trident for the good of the SEALs, the president and the country, believing that he unwittingly had become a lightning rod for criticism and partisan division.

Shortly after Gallagher told Parlatore to write the letter, his attorney received word that Esper had decided to let him retain the pin.

In fact, Navy Times had to scrap a story about the letter when the Pentagon statement arrived.

“This isn’t a twist any of us saw coming,” Parlatore told Navy Times. “From the beginning, my primary responsibility was to save Eddie Gallagher’s life, then to save his reputation, but Eddie Gallagher loves the Navy and he loves the SEAL teams. He’s been falsely accused of attacking the institution, but it’s an institution we both love and want to improve.

“With this personnel change, this institution will improve and no one will go through the ordeal Eddie went through. At the end of the day, the most important duty any of us have is protecting America.”

Parlatore added, “This case is completely bananas.”

Although Gallagher was accused of a string of war crimes tied to a 2017 deployment with Alpha Platoon, SEAL Team 7 — including the murder of a wounded Islamic State prisoner of war — a court-martial panel of his peers in July acquitted him of every charge except the one that the he never denied, posing next to a dead detainee alongside a dozen other service members who were never charged with any crimes.

Had the offense not appeared at a general court-martial trial, it likely would’ve been handled administratively, perhaps with little more than a verbal reprimand before Gallagher retired after two decades of service.

Instead, it was the legal flotsam left after the military jury washed away what was left of the Navy’s failed case against him.

Before Gallagher’s court-martial trial even kicked off, Navy judge Capt. Aaron Rugh sanctioned the prosecution for repeatedly violating Gallagher’s constitutional rights.

Part of Rugh’s punishment included booting Cmdr. Christopher Czaplak, the lead prosecutor, for his role in a warrantless surveillance program cooked up with Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents to track emails sent by defense attorneys and also to Navy Times.

They were accused of manipulating witness statements to NCIS agents; using immunity grants and a bogus “target letter” in a crude attempt to keep potential pro-Gallagher witnesses from testifying; illegally leaking documents to the media to taint the military jury pool; and then trying to cover it all up when they got caught.

In the end, the jurors recommended that Gallagher be demoted to petty officer first class, a verdict upheld by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday but overturned by Trump.

In a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday, Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., asked Army Secretary Mark Esper: Should he be confirmed as the next secretary of defense, would he align his foreign policy views more closely with former Defense Secretary James Mattis or President Trump ― as a rift between the two ultimately led to Mattis’s resignation late last year.

“I don’t know where to pick between the two,” Esper said. “But clearly, I share Secretary Mattis’s views, and I’ve expressed that publicly.”

The Pentagon has been without a full-fledged leader for more than seven months, since Mattis left the building citing disagreements over the importance of strong international alliances to U.S. national security.

“My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues,” Mattis wrote in his resignation letter.

Esper doubled down on those sentiments during the hearing, also echoing a willingness to resign that was laid down last week by Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley in his own confirmation hearing to become the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“I’m fully committed to that,” Esper said of a diplomatic world order led by the U.S. “I think that is the one thing that’s certainly under threat, from Russia, and certainly China. I see the big picture, if you will.”

After Mattis’s exit, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan stepped up into the acting role, and was nominated to replace him permanently. But that plan fell apart in late June, when Shanahan resigned after allegations of domestic abuse surfaced in documents from his 2011 divorce, and Esper spent three weeks as acting defense secretary in his place.

Committee chairman Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., had expressed a goal to hold a vote on Esper’s nomination Thursday, but that could be delayed to next week if any senators plan to vote against Esper.

“Most of us were very discouraged by the resignation of Secretary Mattis,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said. “And what we’ve hoped for is a successor who can show the same level of candor, and principle, and a willingness to remain independent even in the most challenging of circumstances.”

Lawmakers talked up Esper’s vast experience, from serving as an infantry officer on active duty, then in the National Guard and Army Reserve, as well as in national security at a D.C. think tank, as an executive at defense contractor Raytheon, at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill.

“If you are confirmed, you will help oversee national security policy for a president whose temperament and management skills are challenging, and likely very different from your own,” Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., told Esper. “While I may not agree with the president on many issues, I do want him to be surrounded by leaders who can give thoughtful advice and counsel.”

Esper leaned on the National Defense Strategy, the much-lauded, bipartisan policy put together under Mattis, in his response.

“The goal is to deter war, and this can only be done with a strong, modern, and ready military that has overmatch in all domains,” Esper said. “Our adversaries must see diplomacy as their best option because war with the United States will force them to bear enormous costs.”

But lawmakers also expressed concern about 14 top Pentagon jobs that are still without a confirmed official, including currently the secretary and deputy secretaries of defense.

“I’m concerned that the Defense Department may be adrift in a way I have not seen in my whole time on Capitol Hill,” Reed said. “It is my hope that you will work with the White House to impress upon them the importance of filling these positions.”

Esper has a track record of rooting out waste, starting with dozens of hours spent combing through every Army program with Milley last summer. They adjusted some acquisitions and canceled others, adding up with $25 billion in savings.

And at the unit level, Esper released more than a dozen memos reducing non-mandatory training requirements and other administrative tasks for Army leaders in the field, after years of complaints about their burden on readiness ― up to and including the legendary weekend safety brief, and doing away with glowing PT unless soldiers were running on busy roads or at night.

“The bottom line is this: in an era of mounting fiscal challenges and competing demands, we must actively seek ways to free up time, money, and manpower to invest back into our top priorities,” he said.

And he answered for past actions as Army secretary ― like giving up $1 billion set aside for Army personnel funding to support President Trump’s border wall project.

“I think in many ways, it’s just one of those things we do — whether it’s putting out wildfires in California, helping with hurricane recovery in Texas or Puerto Rico, flooding along the Mississippi,” he said. “It’s one of those things we provide to other parts of the government, to the American people.”

But Reed fired back, asking Esper to recognize the distinction between providing manpower support and shuffling around funds ― funds that the Army had pleaded to Congress would be necessary to grow and support the Army.

Looking ahead, Esper shared some of the plans in the works to address aggression from Iran. That includes Operation Sentinel, he said, which has already been briefed to the Senate Armed Service Committee.

“Whereby we do passive patrolling, if you will, in the Strait of Hormuz, Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, to deter any provocative acts by the Iranians or the [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps].”

Lawmakers challenged Esper to a host of other commitments, including:

• Addressing the toxic effects of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, formerly used in a firefighting foam on bases that has seeped into ground water around military installations.
• The Fairness for Veterans Act, a 2017 initiative to streamline discharge upgrades for service members with a post-traumatic stress diagnosis that could have resulted in misconduct that got them separated from the military.
• Reforming military housing, both in management and in physical condition. Esper began this effort as Army secretary, following widespread reports of dangerous and unhealthy conditions at on-base housing facilities, largely ignored by the private corporations who manage them.
• Extending his recusal from working on deals with Raytheon, his former employer ― as he had during his time as Army secretary. Esper said that he intends to stay within legal and policy ethics regulations if working with Raytheon. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., expressed concerns about corruption involving his relationship with Raytheon, and the possibility that he would return to a defense industry job following his time at the Pentagon.
• Sorting out what shape a Space Force, as a separate military service, will take.
• Making efforts to protect active duty service members and their families from being deported, as well as ensuring transitioning service members know how to apply for citizenship as veterans, if they have not already started the process.

“It’s obvious from listening to both sides of the aisle here, from my colleagues Sen. Kaine and also Chairman Inhofe, that based on their direct observation and work with you, both of them think you’re an all-star. I tend to agree …” Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., told Esper. ” … you’re going to need to be an all-star.”