The United States on Thursday imposed travel restrictions on employees and their family members in Israel, expanding cautionary warnings for the region as tensions with Iran rise amid deteriorating nuclear talks and reports of possible plans for Israeli military action.
The US notice, citing “increased regional tensions,” came as Iran said it was holding military drills aimed at “enemy movements” and threatened a stronger retaliation against Israel than in the past, spiking fears of an expanded regional conflagration.
Staff in Israel and their relatives were advised not to travel outside the greater Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Beersheba areas until further notice. Traveling between the cities and to Ben Gurion Airport is allowed, the notice said.
The US Embassy in Baghdad advised American citizens on Thursday against traveling to Iraq, a day after the US State Department decided to pull all nonessential personnel from the mission.
The department also authorized the departure of nonessential personnel and family members from Bahrain and Kuwait, giving them an option on whether to leave the country.
Foreign energy firms continue to operate normally in Iraq, a senior Iraqi official told Reuters.
Bahrain’s state oil firm Bapco Energies is monitoring the situation in the region and its operations are unaffected, it said on Thursday.
The US Embassy in Bahrain also said reports claiming it had changed its posture in any way were false, adding that staffing and operations remain unchanged and activities continue as normal.
The US decision to reduce its footprint in the region was made after all US embassies within striking distance of Iran were instructed to take steps to mitigate risk in the event of a possible Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Washington Post reported Thursday.
As any Israeli military action would almost certainly be met with an Iranian counterattack, the report said, US missions in the Middle East, Northern Africa and Eastern Europe were instructed to convene emergency action committees and to inform Washington of the steps that needed to be taken to minimize harm.
An unnamed State Department official said the procedure, in addition to “recent analyses,” led US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to shrink the size of its mission in Iraq.
However, Iraq said its intelligence and field reports show no threats to diplomatic missions, its state news agency reported Thursday.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also authorized the voluntary departure of military dependents from locations across the Middle East, a US official said Wednesday. Another US official said that it was mostly relevant to family members located in Bahrain — where the bulk of them are based.
The measures were imposed as war drums grew louder on Thursday, after US President Donald Trump indicated earlier in the week that he was no longer as confident as he had been previously that his administration could reach a deal with Iran.
Negotiations, which are nonetheless slated to resume Sunday, have become deadlocked over Tehran’s insistence that it be allowed to maintain low-level uranium enrichment.
As media outlets reported that US officials believe Israel is ready to carry out an attack on Iran and could launch military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming days, state media in Tehran said Thursday that the Islamic Republic’s military has begun drills earlier than planned to focus on “enemy movements.”
Iran’s retaliation to any Israeli aggression will be “more forceful and destructive” than in past offensives, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Hossein Salami told state media on Thursday.
Iran has threatened to strike US bases in the region in the event of an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities, and according to The New York Times, has prepared an immediate counterstrike on Israel with hundreds of ballistic missiles.
In October, Iran launched hundreds of ballistic missiles at Israel, though much of the attack was thwarted by air defenses in Israel and with the help of regional allies and the US. A similar attack in April 2024, which also used drones and cruise missiles, was also largely foiled.
Retaliatory strikes by Israel in October severely damaged Iran’s air defense systems.
Trump has told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel must let talks play out before taking military action.
The talks seek to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of some of the crushing economic sanctions that the US has imposed on the Islamic Republic. Iran, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction, insists its nuclear program is peaceful, although it has enriched uranium to levels that have no use for civilian purposes.
In tit-for-tat moves sure to increase tensions, Iran vowed on Thursday to ramp up its enrichment after, for the first time in two decades, the International Atomic Energy Agency passed a resolution declaring that Iran is in noncompliance with its nuclear safeguards obligations.