The US Navy destroyer USS Delbert D. Black (DDG-119) departed the Israeli port of Eilat on 1 February after completing a scheduled visit announced by US Naval Central Command and the Fifth Fleet on social media. The call, while brief and routine in surface terms, placed a modern Arleigh Burke–class ship at the southern tip of Israel amid a region where maritime security has become a central strategic concern.
Port visits such as this serve several practical purposes: they provide crew rest and resupply, permit minor maintenance, and offer an opportunity for encounters with host-nation officials and naval counterparts. Eilat sits on the Gulf of Aqaba, providing direct access to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal corridor — a chokepoint for global trade and a theatre where Washington has concentrated additional assets since the recent spike in attacks on commercial shipping and warships by Iran-aligned groups.
The deployment falls under the operational purview of the US Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, which is responsible for the Gulf, Red Sea and parts of the Indian Ocean. By making port calls to Israeli facilities beyond the more commonly frequented Haifa, the US is signalling an operational flexibility designed to reassure partners and to sustain a forward presence close to flashpoints in the Levant and wider Middle East maritime routes.
Strategically, the visit has a dual purpose: tangible logistics and a calibrated show of resolve. The presence of an advanced guided‑missile destroyer near Israel underscores Washington’s intent to deter attacks on allied shipping or on Israel itself, to reassure regional partners, and to maintain surveillance and response options in an area where Iran and allied militias retain the capability to disrupt sea traffic.
While the visit itself is not an escalation, it is part of a pattern of increased naval activity intended to stabilise sea lanes and project deterrence. Expect similar port calls and patrols to continue as the US balances limited resources against competing global commitments, and as regional actors test maritime thresholds in the Red Sea and adjacent waters.