The Biden administration is creating contingency plans to evacuate hundreds of thousands of American citizens from the Middle East if the war in Israel spirals into a larger-scale conflict, according to a report in The Washington Post.
American officials, speaking anonymously, told the paper that Americans living in Israel and Lebanon are of particular concern, amid regular exchanges of fire along the countries' border and concerns of a multi-front war.
Hezbollah attacks on Saturday killed Israeli Corporal Tamir Barak, 19, and wounded at least two foreign workers in Israel. The IDF responded using airstrikes, artillery, and infantry. Israel has also begun to evacuate citizens who live close to the border and to amass troops in case of a major attack from the north.
"This has become a real issue," one official was quoted as saying. "The administration is very, very, very worried that this thing is going to get out of hand."
About 600,000 American citizens live in Israel, and the US has been working to ensure safe passage out of the country since the war with Hamas broke out on October 7.
Last week, the State Department urged all citizens in Lebanon to leave the country "as soon as possible," and yesterday offered Americans loans to purchase plane tickets. There were believed to be about 86,000 American citizens in Lebanon at the start of the war, according to the Post.
The officials who spoke to the Post stressed that an evacuation of that scale is considered a worst-case scenario, with other, more limited operations seen as more likely, but that it "would be irresponsible not to have a plan for everything." Such an evacuation could be "more difficult than any previous operations in recent memory," the Post reported, potentially involving Air Force aircraft or Navy warships.
Concern not limited to Israel and Lebanon
The US is also concerned about Americans in other countries throughout the region.
In Amman, Jordan last week, thousands of protestors clashed with riot police, and in Tunisia protestors burned the American flag and demanded the expulsion of the US ambassador. These incidents came following an explosion outside a hospital in Gaza City, which Hamas claimed was the result of an Israeli airstrike. Investigations by multiple intelligence agencies have since determined the explosion was the result of an errant rocket fired from within Gaza by Palestinian Islamic Jihad.