More than 700 foreign nationals have crossed from Iran into neighbouring Azerbaijan and Armenia since Israel began striking the country last week, government officials in Baku and Yerevan said Tuesday.
The Caucasus countries border Iran’s northwest, with the closest crossing into Azerbaijan around 500 kilometres (310 miles) from Tehran by road.
“Since the start of the military escalation between Israel and Iran, more than 600 citizens of 17 countries have been evacuated from Iran via Azerbaijan,” a government source told AFP on Tuesday.
The evacuees, who crossed the border via the Astara checkpoint on the Caspian Sea coast, are being transported to Baku airport and “flown to their home countries on international flights,” the source said.
Among those evacuated are citizens of post-Soviet countries Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, as well as Germany, Spain, Italy, Serbia, Romania, Portugal, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, China and Vietnam.
Azerbaijan shut its land borders in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic and has kept them closed ever since.
“In light of the evacuation need, Azerbaijan has temporarily opened its border for those leaving Iran,” the official said.
India also evacuated 110 of its citizens from Iran through Armenia, Ani Badalyan, Yerevan’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, told journalists.
Poland’s foreign ministry said it would evacuate part of its embassy staff in Tehran via Baku.
“We have decided to evacuate or support the departure of staff who do not need to remain in the country, so-called non-essential personnel,” Deputy Foreign Minister Henryka Moscicka-Dendys told reporters.
“Our colleagues will try to reach the border with Azerbaijan,” she said, without specifying how many people were involved.
Turkmenistan — one of the world’s most closed-off countries — said it had also allowed the transit of around 120 people evacuated from Iran through its territory, mainly citizens of Central Asian countries.
139 people evacuated from Israel
China has called on its citizens to leave Israel “as soon as possible”, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have taken 139 people home on government planes from Israel, authorities said on Tuesday.
A Czech government plane carrying 66 people landed in Prague on Tuesday morning, a day after a Slovak plane had taken 73 evacuees to Bratislava from Amman.
Israel closed its airspace last Friday after conducting strikes on Iran.
“I am glad they are all okay. The transport was really demanding in the difficult environment,” Czech Defence Minister Jana Cernochova said about the Czech flight on the social media site X.
The defence ministry said most of the 66 evacuees were Czech nationals.
“It was not possible to send the army plane straight to Israel,” the ministry said in a statement, citing the airspace closure.
“The evacuees were taken to the airport in the neighbouring country by buses. They crossed the border on foot.”
Czech media said a convoy with the evacuees had left Tel Aviv on Monday morning and boarded the plane in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt.
A Slovak government plane with 73 passengers – mostly Slovaks, but also Poles, Czechs, Austrians, Slovenians and others – landed in Bratislava on Monday before 1700 GMT, said Foreign Minister Juraj Blanar.
Slovakia sent another plane on Tuesday and will then send another on Wednesday, with both expected to bring back Slovaks and foreigners.
Israel hits more missile sites
The Israeli military said Tuesday its forces struck several locations in western Iran, hitting “dozens” of missile launchers as the arch-foes traded fire for a fifth straight day.
“A short while ago, the Israeli air force completed a series of strikes in western Iran,” a military statement said. “As part of the strikes, a number of sites and dozens of surface-to-surface missile launchers were struck.”
The Israeli military said earlier Tuesday that it killed senior Iranian commander Ali Shadmani in an overnight strike on a “command centre in the heart of Tehran” – just four days after his predecessor, Gholam Ali Rashid, was killed in a similar Israeli raid.
It also said it had targeted multiple missile and drone sites in western Iran overnight, including infrastructure, launchers and storage facilities, with black-and-white footage showing some of them exploding.
Iranian media reported two explosions in the western city of Tabriz.
Despite mounting calls to de-escalate, neither side has backed off from the blitz that began Friday, when Israel launched an unprecedented aerial campaign targeting Iranian nuclear and military facilities.
Israeli attacks have killed at least 224 people and wounded more than 1,200 in Iran, the health ministry said on Sunday. It has yet to issue an update.
At least 24 people have been killed and 592 wounded in Iran’s attacks on Israel, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu said Israel was “changing the face of the Middle East” with its military campaign, which could lead to “radical changes” in Iran.
Israel was “pursuing three main objectives: the elimination of the nuclear programme, the elimination of ballistic missile production capability, and the elimination of the axis of terrorism,” he said, referring to Iranian-backed militant groups in the Middle East.
“We will do what is necessary to achieve these goals, and we are well coordinated with the United States,” he said.
He has also not ruled out killing the supreme leader.
Iran has said its targets in Israel included “sensitive and important” security sites as well as “the residences of military commanders and scientists.”
Trump rejects ceasefire
US President Donald Trump said he wanted a “real end” to the conflict, not just a ceasefire, and a “complete give-up” by Iran.
“I’m not looking for a ceasefire, we’re looking at better than a ceasefire,” he told reporters on the plane home after cutting short his attendance at a Group of Seven summit in Canada.
Trump again warned Iran against targeting US troops and assets in the Middle East, saying, “we’ll come down so hard, it’d be gloves off.”
G7 leaders, including Trump, had issued a call on Monday for “de-escalation” of the conflict, but it was accompanied by criticism of Iran and support for Israel’s right to defend itself, drawing a rebuke from Tehran.
“The G7 must give up its one-sided rhetoric and tackle the real source of the escalation – Israel’s aggression,” foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz warned Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei he risked “a fate similar to Saddam Hussein”, the Iraqi president who was toppled and later executed.
