Chinese citizens moved to safety amid Mideast conflict

China is promptly evacuating its citizens from Iran and Israel amid intensifying hostilities between the two Middle East nations, while it continues to promote dialogue and negotiation to prevent the turmoil from snowballing into a wider conflict in the region.

The Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that 791 Chinese nationals in Iran have been moved to safety and more than 1,000 others are being evacuated. Some Chinese citizens have already been safely evacuated from Israel, it added.

Chinese embassies and consulates in Iran's neighboring countries, including Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, have dispatched working groups to assist Chinese nationals in accessing border ports, while helping facilitate their accommodation and onward travel to China, said Guo Jiakun, a spokesman for the ministry.

China expresses sincere gratitude for the strong support and assistance provided by relevant countries, Guo said. The ministry has so far not received any report of casualties of Chinese nationals, he added.

The European Union said it has helped evacuate about 400 citizens of its member states out of Israel via Jordan and Egypt.

As the conflict entered its sixth day on Wednesday, Israel's warplanes pounded military targets in Iran's capital Teheran, while Iran answered Israeli threats and the United States' calls for "unconditional surrender" with another barrage of missiles.

In a recorded video aired by Iran's state television on Wednesday, the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected the US' calls for surrender in the face of blistering Israeli strikes and warned that any military involvement by the US would lead to "irreparable damage".

In a social media post on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump said: "We know exactly where the supreme leader is hiding. We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. ... Our patience is wearing thin."

A few minutes later in another post he demanded Iran's "unconditional surrender".

Ali Bahreini, Iran's ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva, said that he saw the complicity of the US in what Israel is doing, adding that Iran will respond firmly if the US becomes directly involved in Israeli attacks on Iran.

The hostilities, which erupted with surprise Israeli airstrikes on Iran on June 13, have so far killed nearly 600 people in Iran and around 24 in Israel, according to official tallies.

Despite the international community's concerns, Israel's fighter jets struck an Iranian centrifuge production facility and multiple weapons manufacturing sites on Wednesday. The strikes destroyed two buildings making centrifuge components for Iran's nuclear program.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israeli strikes on Iran's nuclear sites have set the country's nuclear program back for a "very, very long time".

Mohamed ElBaradei, former chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the assault on Iran "is a sure way to destroy" the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Agencies contributed to this story.

Contact the writers at cuihaipei@chinadaily.com.cn