The U.S. Department of State has begun assisted departure flights from Israel, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said on X Saturday.
“If you are a U.S. citizen or Lawful Permanent Resident currently in Israel or the West Bank and seeking U.S. government assistance to depart, please complete this form so the Department of State can better assist you and provide you with timely updates: https://mytravel.state.gov/s/crisis-intake,” Huckabee wrote. “If you have only completed the crisis intake form, please do not fill it out again.”
His announcement comes days after confusion about whether the U.S. government would be assisting American citizens evacuating from Israel. Huckabee said on June 18, the sixth day of the Israel-Iran war, that the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem was assisting U.S. citizens with evacuation flights and cruise ship departures, only for the State Department to say later that day they had “no announcement about assisting private U.S. citizens to depart at this time.”
The following day, the U.S. Embassy sent a message to Americans who had enrolled in the State Department’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) that the State Department was “planning for contingencies to assist with private U.S. citizens’ departure from Israel. We will alert the U.S. citizen community if there is additional information to share regarding departure options,” the embassy said. “It asked Americans in Israel interested in leaving the country to fill out an online form.”
The U.S. State Department has also placed Israel under a Level 4 travel advisory, telling Americans not to travel there due to “armed conflict, terrorism and civil unrest.” Ben Gurion International Airport, Israel’s major airport, is currently closed and several commercial airlines have paused flights from Israel to the United States.
In the meantime, Americans in Israel organized evacuations via other measures. Birthright Israel said in a statement to CBS News that the organization evacuated approximately 1,500 program participants aboard the Crown Iris, a luxury Israeli cruise ship operated by Mano Maritime, sailing from Ashdod Port to Larnaca, Cyprus.
Charter flights from Tel Aviv, organized by not-for-profits and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, carrying hundreds of Americans evacuating the Middle East landed in Tampa, Florida, on Friday.
Others decided to exit through the border with Jordan and take a car to the capital of Amman and fly from there to the United States, one parent with a child studying in Israel told CBS News.
Warren Cohen, an American who was in Israel on a business trip when the fighting broke out, told CBS News he thinks the U.S. should be doing more to help get its citizens home. “Mr. President, please bring me home to my family. I’m your neighbor in Mar-a-Largo and I really want to go see my wife and kids,” he said.
As tensions with Iran intensified since the start of the conflict, missile strikes in both countries have led to at least 657 people being killed, including 263 civilians, in Iran, the Washington-based group Health Rights Activist told the AP. At least 24 people in Israel have been killed, Israeli officials say. Strikes on Friday wounded 23 people in the northern part of Israel, emergency services Magen David Adom said.
President Trump has considered joining Israel’s multiday effort to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, saying on Friday he’ll decide within two weeks on possible U.S. military action against Iran. The time frame, some American and European officials say, is a “last shot” at diplomacy.
Haley Ott and
contributed to this report.
