The United States will officially relocate its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem on May 14, the day Israel declared its independence seventy years ago, as well as the day US President Harry Truman decided to recognize the Jewish state, Israeli officials told Axios on Friday.
The move comes just a few months after US President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in line with a law which was passed in 1995 but waived by every president since. The decision broke away with a decades-long status-quo regarding the city and provoked a worldwide backlash. At the same time, Trump instructed the State Department to move the US embassy from its present location in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. However, during his visit to Israel in January, the US Vice President Mike Pence only mentioned that the embassy will be relocated by the end of 2019.
According to the Israeli officials, an "interim embassy" will be attached to an existing consular annex in West Jerusalem, which will host the US Ambassador David Friedman and his office for the time being. In the next phases, a permanent location for the embassy will be picked, when the whole staff will relocate from Tel Aviv.
