About 9,000 American citizens have been evacuated from the Middle East since the start of joint US–Israeli strikes on Iran, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said, as tensions and travel disruption escalate across the region.

Rubio also said that all US personnel were accounted for after a drone struck a parking area near the US consulate in Dubai, adding to the volatile security situation for US nationals abroad. 

The mass movement of Americans comes amid a State Department advisory urging citizens in more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries to “DEPART NOW” due to serious safety risks, with limited commercial flights available as regional airspace remains disrupted.