White House exploring 'contingencies' for Middle East escalations, including 'evacuations'

The White House on Tuesday announced that it was preparing contingency plans to evacuate Americans across the Middle East should the Israel-Hamas conflict spill over into neighboring nations and prompt a wider war.

Israel has maintained a consistent bombardment of the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 Hamas raid that saw terrorists storm border towns and seize roughly 200 hostages. The conflict has already witnessed cross-border exchanges between Israel and its northern neighbors, Syria and Lebanon.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confirmed that the government was brainstorming evacuation plans in the event the situation gets out of control.

"It would be imprudent and irresponsible if we didn’t have folks thinking through a broad range of contingencies and possibilities," he said, according to the Associated Press. "And certainly evacuations are one of those things."

He did, however, emphasize that their are currently no "active" evacuations.

Amid the ongoing bombardment, anti-Israel demonstrations have materialized at Israeli and American facilities across the region, including in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan, where President Joe Biden was expected to meet with regional leaders to discuss the conflict.

Jordanian authorities cancelled the summit, however. That decision came amid large-scale demonstrations in the capital city of Amman in response to allegations that the Israel Defense Forces had targeted a hospital in Gaza. 

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.