— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid)
February 23, 2018
Mr Ravid said staff in the existing US consular annexe in Jerusalem were notified on Friday that the status of their building would be changed to the US Embassy in Jerusalem from Monday 14 May.
David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel, would relocate his office to the building on that date and consular workers at the building would become embassy staff, he added.
A move of staff from Tel Aviv would follow over the subsequent months while a site is found for a new full embassy building in the city.
In a speech before the Knesset last month Vice President Mike Pence had said the embassy would be moved to Jerusalem by 2019.
Donald Trump tore up decades of convention in early December last year by declaring that the US now recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital city.
“We cannot solve our problems by making the same failed assumptions and repeating the same failed strategies of the past,” he said at the time.
