Israel’s Miami consulate evacuated after bomb threat

The Israeli consulate in Miami was briefly evacuated on Thursday after a hoax bomb threat, the Foreign Ministry said.

Miami police gave the all-clear an hour after the building was emptied, saying that they had found no evidence of any explosives in the building.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the threat and the evacuation.

“Police and the security team [of the consulate] are handling,” said a brief statement from the Foreign Ministry.

Update: All clear in reference to the bomb threat. Traffic along Biscayne Blvd has been reopened. #Traffic pic.twitter.com/t1uN4EnPRj

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— Miami PD (@MiamiPD) February 16, 2017

The consulate is housed in the 30-story New World Tower, also known as 100 Biscayne Tower, in the business district of downtown Miami.

Israeli consulate in Miami evacuated due to bomb threat https://t.co/gUUbM1EAfh pic.twitter.com/ssoK6oRUco

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— WSVN 7 News (@wsvn) February 16, 2017

Last month the FBI announced it was launching an official probe into a wave of bomb threats to US Jewish institutions across the country in recent weeks.

On January 18 at least 32 Jewish centers in 16 states received threats.

Those threats came a week after an initial wave of bomb threats were called into 16 institutions across the Northeast and South on January 9, and hundreds of people were evacuated. All the alerts were false.

The bomb threats are part of a recent wave of increased anti-Semitism in the US. The Anti-Defamation League documented rising anti-Semitic abuse on Twitter last year, as well as a spike in hate crimes following the presidential election.

JTA contributed to this report.