{"id":147293,"date":"2026-02-27T13:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T13:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/147293\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T13:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T13:20:11","slug":"mike-huckabee-tells-israel-embassy-staff-to-leave-today-if-they-want-to-as-iran-talks-stall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/147293\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Huckabee tells Israel embassy staff to leave ‘today’ if they want to as Iran talks stall"},"content":{"rendered":"

The State Department is letting non-essential personnel and the family members of diplomats at the US embassy in Israel leave the country as fears grow that war with Iran<\/a> is imminent.<\/p>\n

In an email to staff at the Jerusalem mission Friday morning, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee<\/a> warned that those wishing to depart the Jewish state \u201cshould do so TODAY.\u201d<\/p>\n

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has allowed non-essential personnel and family members of diplomats to leave Israel. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cFocus on getting a seat to anyplace from which you can then continue travel to DC,\u201d added the former Arkansas governor in the message, first reported by the New York Times<\/a>, \u201cbut the first priority will be getting expeditiously out of country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Huckabee added that the decision to allow departures was made out of \u201can abundance of caution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no need to panic,\u201d he went on, \u201cbut for those desiring to leave, it\u2019s important to make plans to depart sooner rather than later.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israeli soldiers carry out a military operation on Feb. 26, 2026. Nasser Ishtayeh\/SOPA Images\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

The US consulate building in Jerusalem on Feb. 24, 2018. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s email follows unsuccessful indirect talks between the US and Iran<\/a> in Geneva, Switzerland Thursday over Tehran\u2019s nuclear program, though additional discussions were set to take place next week in Vienna, Austria.<\/p>\n

Iran is likely to launch ballistic missile attacks against Israel in retaliation for any US strike. <\/p>\n

This past June, 33 Israelis were killed and more than 3,200 injured in missile and drone attacks during the 12-day war with Iran. <\/p>\n

As Thursday\u2019s discussions concluded, Iranian state TV reported that Tehran was determined to continue enriching uranium, rejected proposals to transfer it abroad and sought the immediate lifting of international sanctions, rejecting three demands from US representatives Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.<\/p>\n

The theocratic regime has also refused to broaden the discussions to cover Iran\u2019s stockpile of ballistic missiles or its support for terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.<\/p>\n

While the White House had no official comment on the Geneva talks, Vice President JD Vance told the Washington Post<\/a> \u201cthere is no chance\u201d that any US strike on Iran would result in a years-long Middle Eastern war.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we all prefer the diplomatic option,\u201d the VP added. \u201cBut it really depends on what the Iranians do and what they say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Multiple reports indicate that President Trump is mulling different possibilities for an Iran operation, including targeted strikes on military and nuclear strikes as well as so-called \u201cdecapitation\u201d attacks meant to take out Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other high-ranking officials to lay the groundwork for regime change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The State Department is letting non-essential personnel and the family members of diplomats at the US embassy in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[14670,60,42443,9,11,10,87,61743,58],"class_list":["post-147293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-mike-huckabee","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-politics","tag-us-embassy","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}