India evacuated nearly 3,000 of its nationals from Iran and Israel by Tuesday morning, using C-17 heavy lift aircraft of the Indian Air Force to fly out more than 600 citizens who were moved out of Israel to Egypt and Jordan by road.
The first group of 161 Indians moved from Israel to Jordan by road reached New Delhi in a chartered flight from Amman at 8:20am on Tuesday. The group was received at the airport by minister of state for external affairs Pabitra Margrherita, external affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said on social media.
Another group of 165 Indians moved from Israel to Jordan were flown back to New Delhi from Amman in a C-17 aircraft. When the flight landed at 8.45 am, the group was received by minister of state L Murugan.
Yet another group of nearly 300 Indians, who crossed over from Israel to Egypt via the Taba land border, were evacuated in a C-17 aircraft from Sharm-el-Sheikh, officials said.
The flights from Jordan were delayed because of airspace restrictions imposed by West Asian countries because of Iranian missile strikes in the region late on Monday.
The evacuation of Indians from Iran also continued on Tuesday, with a chartered flight bringing 292 Indians from Mashhad to New Delhi at 3.30 am on Tuesday. With this, India has evacuated a total of 2,295 of its nationals from Iran since last week.
India earlier advised its citizens who wanted to leave Israel to travel by land border crossings to either Jordan or Egypt, from where they would be evacuated on special flights.
Last week, India launched Operation Sindhu to evacuate its nationals from Iran and Israel. Indians in Iran were initially moved to Armenia by road before chartered flights were arranged from the Iranian city of Mashhad after authorities eased airspace restrictions last Friday as a special gesture.
The Indian embassy in Tehran has already announced that all Indian nationals in Iran will be evacuated. Iran is home to about 10,000 Indians, many of them students enrolled in professional courses, and a sizeable number of Indian pilgrims were in the country when hostilities erupted after Israel’s air strikes on June 13.
There are more than 32,000 Indians in Israel, many of them care-givers and construction workers hired in recent months to replace Palestinians.
