A former Hamas leader’s call for protests around the world has some Americans who are planning travel in the coming days weighing agonizing choices days after the militant group’s deadly attack on Israeli communities.
Khaled Meshaal’s recordings reviewed by Reuters have reverberated on social media and stoked rumors that a “jihad” in the “squares and streets of the Arab and Islamic world” could lead to violence Friday.
For those Americans in Israel who want to leave, the White House said the U.S. government will arrange charter flights to Europe starting Friday.
Natalie Sanandaji, 28, from Long Island, New York, was in Greece on Thursday deciding on flight options home.
“I’m hoping to get home as soon as possible, but there’s this fear of traveling on the 13th, tomorrow,” Sanandaji, who was in Israel during the attack, told USA TODAY. “People are telling us to avoid crowded places and I’m looking at these layovers in Egypt or London or Paris and those are high-risk places.”
A White House spokesman said Thursday the U.S. death toll from the Hamas attacks rose to 27, a day after the State Department raised its alert level for American travelers to Israel and the West Bank, urging them to reconsider their plans. Travel advisories already are in place urging increased caution for U.S. citizens traveling to Jordan and Turkey and advising them to reconsider travel to Egypt and Lebanon because of terrorism. “Terrorists may attack with little or no warning,” the agency warns.
The uncertainty follows a trip to Israel by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv in a show of support.
In the U.S., National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said federal, state and local authorities are working to identify and disrupt any threats toward the Jewish community. He said 14 Americans remain missing in Israel.
