US official: We’re helping Americans evacuate from Israel

An estimated 500,000 Americans were in the Middle East when the war with Iran broke out.

By World Israel News Staff

The U.S. State Department is assisting Americans in Israel and across the Middle East in evacuating after issuing an unprecedented warning urging all U.S. citizens to leave the region following the outbreak of war with Iran.

On Monday, March 2 — two days after the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and much of the Islamic Republic’s senior leadership — the State Department called on Americans in numerous Middle Eastern countries to depart immediately, citing “serious safety risks.”

Since the outbreak of the war, Tehran has launched retaliatory attacks on U.S. military bases across the region and on civilian targets, including Dubai International Airport in the UAE, sparking panic throughout Gulf states.

Commercial airlines canceled flights, and several countries closed their airspace, creating major obstacles for Americans trying to leave.

Washington has faced criticism from Americans frustrated that the State Department warning came after the war had already begun, when travel options were severely limited.

In Israel, which closed its airspace, the only options for evacuating the country are through its land border with Egypt, located in the southernmost part of the Jewish State, or via maritime crossings to Cyprus.

“Hundreds of American citizens have left Israel since the start of the conflict. Over the last few days, the State Department has assisted over 130 American citizens departing Israel, with an additional 100 American citizens expected to depart” in the immediate future, a U.S. official told The Times of Israel.

In a separate media statement, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Global Public Affairs Dylan Johnson said Washington was “actively securing military aircraft and charter flights for American citizens who wish to leave the Middle East.”

Johnson added that his agency had “been in direct contact with nearly 3,000 Americans abroad.”

There are an estimated 500,000 American citizens who were either living in or visiting the region when the war began. More than 9,000 Americans “have safely returned from the Middle East” since the outbreak of the fighting, the State Department said in a press release.

Darren Kew, dean of the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego, told CBS 8 that Iran’s attacks on numerous countries in the region were a strategic decision to “create suffering and chaos” in countries allied with the U.S., in the belief that doing so would lead those allies to pressure Washington to wrap up the war as soon as possible.

“All of this is as part of a survival strategy on the part of the Iranian regime, to create as much collateral damage as possible for the United States,” Kew added.

“It’s understandable that the United States would, of course, warn its citizens in the region that this was under way and to encourage them to get out of harm’s way as soon as possible.”