WASHINGTON (AP) — After months of special operations at sea to protect Israel, the strike group of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford will return home, the Navy announced Monday.

The Ford and its associated warships will be replaced by the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan and its associated warships USS Mesa Verde and USS Carter Hall. The three ships were in the Red Sea and had been heading to the eastern Mediterranean for the past few days.

The Ford will sail home “in the coming days,” the U.S. 6th Fleet, the Europe-based U.S. naval command responsible for ships in the Mediterranean, said in a statement.

The Ford was sent to the eastern Mediterranean to be within striking distance of Israel since the day after the October 7 Hamas attacks. The aircraft carrier remained in the eastern Mediterranean while its accompanying warships sailed into the Red Sea, where they repeatedly intercepted incoming ballistic missiles and attack drones fired from Houthi-controlled Yemen. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited the Ford last month.

Since expanding into the eastern Mediterranean, the aircraft carriers Ford and USS Dwight D. Eisenhower have become part of a two-aircraft carrier presence containing the Israel-Hamas war, underscoring U.S. concerns about the conflict expanding. The Eisenhower recently patrolled near the Gulf of Aden, at the mouth of the Red Sea waterway where so many merchant ships have been attacked in recent weeks.

On Sunday, helicopters from the Eisenhower and its destroyer USS Gravely responded to a distress call from the container ship Maersk Hangzhou, which was attacked by four Iranian-backed Houthi small boats. As the helicopters responded, the boats fired at them with crew-served weapons and small arms, and the helicopters returned fire, sinking three of the four boats and killing their crews, U.S. Central Command said.

The ongoing attacks on merchant ships have prompted some companies to halt transit through the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Gulf of Aden to the southern Red Sea and then the Suez Canal.

The Bataan’s accompanying warship, the Mesa Verde, is a transport dock ship carrying approximately 2,000 Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit. These Marines “provide a force capable of supporting a broad range of missions,” the U.S. 6th Fleet said. The Carter Hall is a dock landing ship that carries amphibious landing craft and their crews. Both ships and the Bataan can support rotary aircraft; The Bataan can also transport and support the Marine Corps’ F-35 vertical takeoff fighter aircraft.