US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee announced Wednesday that the United States is organizing evacuations of American citizens out of Israel, as the specter of the US potentially striking against Iran looms.
In a post on X, Huckabee wrote that the embassy is “working on evacuation flights and cruise ship departures” for citizens who are “wanting to leave” the country. Americans looking to leave Israel via an evacuation flight or cruise ship departure need to be registered via the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program, Huckabee added.
The US had been holding off on organizing any flights out of Israel for American citizens as Israel and Iran trade blows. Just nine hours before Huckabee’s announcement, the US Embassy in Jerusalem wrote on its X account that it had “no announcement about assisting private US citizens to depart at this time,” though it acknowledged that “the Department of State is always planning for contingencies to assist with private US citizens’ departure from crisis areas.”
But the announcement follows several days of signaling from President Donald Trump and the White House that it is mulling intervening in the ongoing fighting between Israel and Iran to take out Iranian nuclear facilities buried underground.
Israel lacks the necessary bombs and aircraft to take out many of Iran’s nuclear facilities, which Tehran has constructed underground to avoid attacks, and as such would need US help in bombing the sites. Israel has argued its strikes are necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon; Iran, which maintains a civilian nuclear program, has denied that it is enriching nuclear material with the intention of building a nuclear warhead.
Trump on Wednesday said he’s still undecided about whether to strike. “Nobody knows what I’m going to do,” the president told reporters at the White House.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, however, has vowed that the US will face severe consequences if it enters the conflict and strikes Iran. “The harm the US will suffer will definitely be irreparable if they enter this conflict militarily,” Khamenei wrote on his X account Wednesday.
