US asks Israel to protect its citizens in Lebanon during evacuation

The American embassy in Beirut has urged U.S. citizens to “depart Lebanon while commercial options still remain available.”

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The Biden administration has asked Israel to protect American citizens in Lebanon during a possible evacuation process, Axios reported Monday.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin raised the issue of installing a “deconfliction” mechanism with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, on Saturday, so that the IDF doesn’t accidentally hit Americans who are trying to leave the country.

Axios reported that “while there has been no decision to move forward with an evacuation, the Israelis are receptive to the U.S. concerns.”

In commenting on the phone call, Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement that “Secretary Austin emphasized his concern for the safety and security of U.S. citizens in the region.”

The call came after the IDF began massive airstrikes on Hezbollah targets, which have yet to stop, and the terrorists have responded with hundreds of rocket and missile attacks on Israel that have reached deeper into the country than ever before.

The exchange of aerial assaults is the worst since the 2006 Second Lebanon War, when the U.S. did evacuate its citizens due to Israel’s ground invasion, which was limited to the southern part of the country.

Currently, Israel’s air force is going much further, pummeling Hezbollah forces in its neighborhoods in Beirut and strongholds in the Bekaa Valley, some 60 miles into Lebanon.

The IDF has also successfully eliminated many of the Iranian terror proxy’s most senior commanders in the last week, including assassinating the head of Hezbollah’s missile and rocket array, Ibrahim Qubaisi, on Tuesday in Beirut.

The danger of an all-out war breaking out is thus clear, and the State Department is telling U.S. citizens that they should use any means available to get out, for their own safety.

“Due to the unpredictable nature of ongoing conflict between Hezbollah and Israel and recent explosions throughout Lebanon, including Beirut, the US Embassy urges US citizens to depart Lebanon while commercial options still remain available,” it said in a new travel advisory Monday.

The U.S. already has considerable forces in the region, including an aircraft carrier strike group.

On Monday Ryder also announced, without giving any more details, that “In light of increased tensions in the Middle East and out of an abundance of caution, we are sending a small number of additional US military personnel” to augment those already in place.

In August, after the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran credited to Israel and the IDF’s admitted hit on Hezbollah chief of staff Fuad Shukr, tensions had also risen to the extent that the U.S. embassy in Beirut “encouraged” its citizens in Lebanon to “book any ticket available to them.”