Several countries including the US have issued new travel guidelines for Israel and the surrounding region, as the Israeli military said its forces were “highly alert” for a possible Iranian strike. A US official said Friday that Washington expects an attack by Iran against Israel that would be bigger than recent attacks in the long shadow war between the two countries, but not so big that it would draw the US into war.
The US state department on Thursday barred its employees from travelling to large parts of Israel, the first time the US govt had restricted the movement of its employees in this way since the war in the Gaza Strip began. On Thursday, Britain told its citizens that they “should consider leaving” Israel and the Palestinian territories “if it is safe to do so.” On Friday, France advised people not to travel to Israel, Iran or Lebanon and evacuated the families of French diplomats from Iran.
The new guidelines bar US govt employees and their families from travelling to locations outside the Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Beersheba metropolitan areas of Israel “out of an abundance of caution” until further notice. The state department said US personnel could move among those areas for personal travel.
US national security council spokesman John Kirby told journalists Friday, “We still deem the potential threat by Iran here to be real, to be viable.”
The top US military commander for the Middle East, General Michael Kurilla, travelled to Israel to coordinate a response to possible Iranian retaliation, US officials said.