{"id":195502,"date":"2025-06-18T22:18:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T22:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/195502\/"},"modified":"2025-06-18T22:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T22:18:09","slug":"us-starts-evacuating-some-diplomats-from-embassy-in-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/195502\/","title":{"rendered":"US starts evacuating some diplomats from embassy in Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The State Department has begun evacuating nonessential diplomats and their families from the U.S. embassy in Israel as hostilities between Israel and Iran<\/a> intensify and President Donald Trump warns of the possibility<\/a> of getting directly involved in the conflict.<\/p>\n

A government plane evacuated a number of diplomats<\/a> and family members who had asked to leave the country Wednesday, two U.S. officials said. That came shortly before U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee announced on X that the embassy was making plans for evacuation flights and ships for private American citizens.<\/p>\n

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive diplomatic movements.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the ongoing situation and as part of the embassy\u2019s authorized departure status, mission personnel have begun departing Israel through a variety of means,\u201d the State Department said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAuthorized departure\u201d means that nonessential staff and the families of all personnel are eligible to leave at government expense.<\/p>\n

There was no indication of how many diplomats and family members departed on the flight or how many may have left by land routes to Jordan or Egypt. <\/p>\n

The evacuations, comments from the White House and shifting of American military aircraft and warships into and around the Middle East have heightened the possibility of deepening U.S. involvement in a conflict that threatens to spill into a wider regional war<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trump has issued increasingly pointed warnings<\/a> about the U.S. joining Israel in striking at Iran\u2019s nuclear program, saying Wednesday that he doesn\u2019t want to carry out a U.S. strike on the Islamic Republic but suggesting he is ready to act if it\u2019s necessary.<\/p>\n

The State Department also has steadily ramped up its warnings to American citizens in Israel and throughout the region, including in Iraq.<\/p>\n

Last week, ahead of Israel\u2019s first strikes on Iran, the department and the Pentagon put out notices announcing that the U.S. embassy in Baghdad had ordered all nonessential personnel to leave and that the Defense Department had \u201cauthorized the voluntary departure of military dependents from locations across the Middle East<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Those warnings have increased as the conflict has intensified, with the embassy in Jerusalem authorizing the departure of nonessential staff and families over the weekend and ordering remaining personnel to shelter in place until further notice.<\/p>\n

The embassy has been closed since Monday and will remain shut through Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The State Department has begun evacuating nonessential diplomats and their families from the U.S. embassy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[26935,32,63917,4179,774,837,839,285,15962,49,5213,978,659,7660,10673,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-195502","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-2024-2025-mideast-wars","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-evacuations","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-iran","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-middle-east","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-u-s-department-of-state","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-government","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa","21":"tag-war-and-unrest","22":"tag-washington-news","23":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114706691138983442","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}