WASHINGTON – The State Department has doubled the number of emergency evacuation flights it is providing for American citizens wishing to leave Israel, ordered the departure of nonessential staff from the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon and is stepping up travel warnings around the Middle East because of concerns Iran will retaliate against U.S. interests in the region.
In internal and public notices, the department over the weekend significantly ramped up its cautionary advice to Americans in the Mideast.
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In a notice on Sunday, after American strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities, the department said it had ordered nonessential personnel and the families of staff at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut to leave Lebanon “due to the volatile and unpredictable security situation in the region.”
The notice made no mention of any potential evacuation flights or other assistance for private Americans wanting to leave Lebanon but said those who want to should try to use existing commercial services to depart.
At the same time, the department issued warnings to U.S. citizens in Saudi Arabia and Turkey to take extra security precautions given the uncertainty.
“Given reports of regional hostilities, the U.S. Mission to Saudi Arabia has advised its personnel to exercise increased caution and limit non-essential travel to any military installations in the region,” the department said in its notice for Saudi Arabia.
In Turkey, the department said U.S. personnel “have been cautioned to maintain a low profile and instructed to avoid personal travel to the U.S. Consulate Adana consular district,” which includes the NATO airbase at Incirlik.
“Negative sentiment toward U.S. foreign policy may prompt actions against U.S. or Western interests in Turkey,” the statement said.
Late Saturday, the department said it was stepping up evacuation flights for American citizens from Israel to Europe and continuing to draw down its staff at diplomatic missions in Iraq.
But even before the U.S. airstrikes on Iran were made public by President Donald Trump on Saturday evening in Washington, the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem had announced the start of evacuation flights for private Americans from Israel.
Sixty-seven American citizens left Israel on two government flights bound for Athens, Greece, on Saturday and four more evacuation flights to Athens had been planned for Sunday, according to an internal State Department document seen by The Associated Press. However, due to the closure of Israeli airspace after the U.S. airstrikes on Iran three of those four flights were canceled, according to an update from the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.
The embassy is planning to reschedule the canceled flights to Athens on Monday when it expects as many as six evacuation flights to the Greek capital, along with a chartered flight to Rome and another flight to Cyprus, according to the update.
In addition to the flights that have already left, a cruise ship carrying more than 1,000 American citizens, including several hundred Jewish youngsters who had been visiting Israel on an organized tour, arrived in Cyprus, according to the document.
It also said the evacuation of non-essential personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and consulate in Erbil is continuing. Those staffers had been ordered to leave even before Israel began its military operation in Iran more than a week ago. “As part of our ongoing effort to streamline operations, additional personnel departed Iraq on June 21 and 22,” the department said. “These departures represent a continuation of the process started on June 12.”
As of Saturday, more than 7,900 Americans had asked for assistance in leaving Israel and more than 1,000 had sought help in leaving Iran, where the U.S. has no diplomatic presence, the document said.
There are roughly 700,000 Americans, many of them dual U.S.-Israeli citizens, in Israel and many thousands of Americans, most of them dual U.S.-Iranian citizens, in Iran. It was not clear how many Americans had successfully made it out of Iran through overland routes, although the document said more than 200 had entered neighboring Azerbaijan as of Saturday since the conflict began.
After the U.S. strikes in Iran, security officers at all U.S. embassies and consulates have been instructed to conduct reviews of their post’s security posture and report back to the State Department by late Sunday.