Israel asks citizens to avoid travelling to UAE amid threats of Iranian attack

As tensions between UAE and Iran escalated, Israel warned its citizens to avoid travelling to UAE citing safety issues. Israel’s National Security Agency on Monday revised the tourist guidelines for UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain among other Gulf nations stating a threat of attack from Iran. The warning included both Dubai and Abu Dhabi, as well as Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and the Kurdish region of Iraq. “We estimate that Iran will continue to operate in the near future to harm Israeli targets,” Israel’s INSA’s anti-terrorism office said in a statement in the local language, cited by The Associated Press. 

Israel’s advisory against the threat to its citizens in the Gulf nations comes even after ties were normalized between UAE and Israel by the former Trump administration’s senior adviser Jared Kushner and US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, both of whom brokered the peace deal. The Kingdom and Israel signed the Abraham Accords, and as of February 2021,  at least 130,000 Israeli tourists have already visited UAE after air travel resumed between the Jewish state and the Arab world in a historic first,  Head of Israel’s embassy in Abu Dhabi, Eitan Naeh told UAE’s state news agency WAM. In fact, UAE has remained one of the popular tourist places for the Israelis since the normalization of ties. 

Iranian attack plot on UAE embassy hatched

Iran and UAE have engaged in a bitter spat since the US announced that it was ending military support for the Saudi-led coalition in the years-long war against Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis rebel. Last month, Ethiopia claimed that it hatched an Iranian plot of attack on the UAE embassy after it arrested at least 15 people and seized weapons and explosives from the rebel group planning an attack on UAE embassies. The operation was a part of Iran’s motive to seek revenge for the killings of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani by the US and Iran’s main nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Ethiopian Press Agency (EPA) reported. “The group took the mission from a foreign terrorist group and was preparing to inflict significant damage on properties and human lives,” Ethiopia’s state-run agency said in a statement. 

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also took aim at UAE saying, “ ' How miserable they [Saudi] are that they trust you [US], as Biden announced that he was ending the Saudi-led military offensive in conflict-ridden Yemen to put an end to the country's civil wars. 

(Image Credit: AP)