{"id":91798,"date":"2026-03-02T19:07:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T00:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/?p=91798"},"modified":"2026-07-15T09:23:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T14:23:25","slug":"us-urges-americans-to-depart-now-from-israel-and-a-dozen-other-middle-eastern-countries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/us-urges-americans-to-depart-now-from-israel-and-a-dozen-other-middle-eastern-countries\/","title":{"rendered":"US urges Americans to \u2018DEPART NOW\u2019 from Israel and a dozen other Middle Eastern countries"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By GRACE GILSON<\/p>\n<p>(JTA) \u2014 The U.S. State Department urged American citizens on Monday afternoon to urgently depart from over a dozen Middle Eastern countries amid the escalating conflict in Iran.<\/p>\n<p>The list includes Israel, which halted all commercial air travel when U.S. and Israeli forces jointly attacked Iran on Saturday.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_91799\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/el-al.avif\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-91799\" class=\"wp-image-91799\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/el-al.avif\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"167\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-91799\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">El Al plane is seen at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, Netherlands on October 16, 2025. (Jakub Porzycki\/NurPhoto)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cThe @SecRubio @StateDept urges Americans to DEPART NOW from the countries below using available commercial transportation, due to serious safety risks,\u201d wrote Mora Namdar, the State Department\u2019s assistant secretary for consular affairs, in a post on X.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to Israel, the countries listed in the advisory were Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Several of the countries have been targets of Iranian fire as the regime there has sought to widen the conflict in the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p>While Namdar\u2019s advisory urged Americans to \u201cdepart via commercial means,\u201d there is currently no commercial air travel in or out of Israel. Israeli airlines El Al, Air Haifa and Israir announced plans to launch rescue flights to bring stranded Israelis abroad back home once authorities reopen Ben Gurion Airport, but it is not clear when that could happen. Some Israelis are making their way to Taba, Egypt, for passage into and out of Israel, but flights there are limited. Taba is about a 20-minute drive from Eilat, in southern Israel.<\/p>\n<p>President Donald Trump warned on Monday that the largest U.S. strikes on Iran are yet to come.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"US%20urges%20Americans%20to%20%E2%80%98DEPART%20NOW%E2%80%99%20from%20Israel%20and%20a%20dozen%20other%20Middle%20Eastern%20countries\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":91799,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,25],"tags":[9377,137,663,184,1131,8781,8790,8795,1858,6271,1041,8788,9689,3096,244,15084,1215,3401],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91798"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91800,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91798\/revisions\/91800"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}