Hundreds of thousands of Americans stranded in a war zone

On February 28, the United States and Israel launched major combat operations in Iran. Iran has retaliated by striking multiple U.S. military facilities and embassies across the Middle East, including in Iraq, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). As of Wednesday, the war had claimed the lives of six U.S. service members, 10 people in Israel, and over 1,000 civilians in Iran, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency.

Due to the intensity of combat in the Middle East, other countries not directly involved in the conflict quickly began evacuating their citizens from the region. The Italian government has facilitated the evacuation of 2,500 Italians on commercial flights. The Czech Republic sent multiple flights to evacuate people stranded in the area. Several other countries, including the United Kingdom, France, and Greece, had organized flights scheduled for Wednesday, Reuters reported.

Americans in the area are in danger of being targeted, but the State Department did not advise citizens to leave the region before the strikes began. Before the 2003 Iraq War, in contrast, the State Department advised citizens to prepare to evacuate weeks in advance and ordered a final evacuation days before fighting began.

This year, Americans in 14 countries were not advised to evacuate until three days after the Trump administration began major combat operations in Iran. By that time, much of the region’s airspace and most airports had closed.

According to the BBC, between “500,000 and one million US nationals are estimated to be living in the Middle East.”

The State Department told Americans to use “available commercial transportation“ to evacuate. On Tuesday, when Americans called a phone number publicized by the State Department, they received an automated message: “Please do not rely on the U.S. government for assisted departure or evacuation. At this time, there are currently no United States evacuation points.” (When Popular Information called the hotline on Wednesday afternoon, the recorded message said that the U.S. is “committed to helping U.S. citizens who want to leave the region to do so.”)

An American businessman who has been stranded in the UAE told NOTUS that when he reached a live operator, he was told to sign up online for State Department security alerts but was not offered any other help. Several news outlets spoke to stranded Americans who described feeling “trapped” and “helpless.”

“I’m just very shocked and upset that I see other nations getting their citizens out and we’re just stranded here,” one U.S. citizen stuck in Abu Dhabi told NPR.

Meanwhile, U.S. embassies throughout the Middle East announced that they were shutting down or unable to help stranded Americans. On Tuesday, the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem posted on X that it was not able “at this time to evacuate or directly assist Americans in departing Israel.” The embassy noted that Americans in Israel may be able to take ground transportation to Egypt and depart from Cairo’s airport, where flights have not been interrupted. However, the embassy’s post said that “the U.S. government cannot guarantee your safety” if Americans took this option.

Similarly, the U.S. embassy in Qatar told Americans they “should not rely on the US government for assisted departure or evacuation” and should “take advantage of commercial transportation options.”

Other U.S. embassies, including those in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Lebanon, told Americans they could not offer assistance. Some also closed and cancelled appointments. Several countries in the region — including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Egypt — currently lack Senate-confirmed U.S. ambassadors.

When asked on Tuesday why there was no evacuation plan for Americans in the area, President Trump argued that it was “because it happened all very quickly,” adding, “I thought we were going to have a situation where we were gonna be attacked.”

Damage control

On Tuesday, after coming under intense scrutiny, the Trump administration began scrambling to shift the narrative that it had abandoned U.S. citizens in the Middle East.

A State Department spokesperson posted on X that the department was “actively securing military aircraft and charter flights for American citizens who wish to leave the Middle East,” and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted a very similar statement. Later in the day, Trump joined the chorus, posting on Truth Social: “We are already chartering flights, free of charge, and booking commercial options, which we expect will become increasingly available as time goes on.”

But several major airports remain closed, and the airspace over much of the region was still nearly empty as of Wednesday.

A statement released Wednesday by the State Department said that “over 17,500 American citizens have safely returned to the United States from the Middle East,” although most did so without any assistance. The State Department said “nearly 6,500 Americans abroad” received what they described as “security guidance and travel assistance.” But this is a small fraction of the estimated number of Americans in the region.

On Wednesday evening, the State Department announced in a post on X that a “charter flight of American citizens departed the Middle East in route [sic] to the United States.”

Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle have questioned the Trump administration’s approach to evacuating citizens. Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) called on Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to “promptly appear before Congress and explain to the American people how they so poorly planned for the protection and evacuation of Americans.” When asked by Roll Call about the lack of Marines trained in evacuations in the armada around Iran, Republican Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) said, “We may be asking about that soon.”