By STEFANIE DAZIO

BERLIN (AP) — Tens of thousands of people, from Romanian religious pilgrims to tourists and diplomats’ family members, are stranded across the Middle East as the Iran war spreads throughout the region.

Major airlines have canceled flights to and from the region, and airspace across the Gulf is closed. Some of those who are stuck have been forced to seek shelter amid airstrikes, while others are stuck on cruise ships that currently cannot sail through the Strait of Hormuz.

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In a major move Monday, the U.S. State Department urged all U.S. citizens to leave more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries over the safety risk with the ongoing escalations that have dragged the region into significant chaos.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Mora Namdar said on social platform X that Americans in countries including Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel should “DEPART NOW” using any available commercial transportation.

The State Department has also evacuated non-emergency personnel and families in six nations, adding the United Arab Emirates to its list Tuesday. The UAE, home to Dubai and Abu Dhabi and long considered a safe corner of the Middle East, has been dragged into the Iran war with interceptions and attacks.

In Israel, meanwhile, the U.S. ambassador told Americans there that the best way to leave is through Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

Mike Huckabee wrote on social media early Tuesday that the embassy was receiving lots of evacuation requests as embassy staff “are sheltering in place.”

“There are VERY LIMITED options,” he wrote. “Not sure when Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv will reopen.” He advised Americans to take buses to the Egyptian resorts of Sharm el-Sheikh and Taba in southern Sinai.

Governments try to get their citizens home

Governments worldwide are scrambling to repatriate their citizens.

In Italy, the government has assisted with flights to Milan and Rome in the wake of mounting criticism against Defense Minister Guido Crosetto. The minister sparked a political controversy at home after being stuck in Dubai with his family during the initial phase of the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran.

An overseas Filipino worker sleeps as she waits for updates on her canceled flight to the Middle East at Manila’s International Airport, Philippines on Monday, March 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Crosetto returned to Rome on Sunday on a military aircraft. The left-wing opposition has called for Crosetto’s resignation, saying he should not have traveled to the Middle East during a crisis. Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni has defended him.

An estimated 30,000 German tourists remained on cruise ships, in hotels or at closed airports in the Middle East, and the first plane from Dubai to Frankfurt, Germany, was expected to land Tuesday afternoon.

The German government is also seeking to charter planes at taxpayer expense to get vulnerable people — including ill travelers, children and pregnant people — back home.

France is also trying to organize the return of thousands of French people, the country’s foreign affairs minister said Tuesday. An estimated 200,000 French people live in the region affected by the conflict, and authorities believe roughly 25,000 French citizens are currently visiting the area.

A man works beside a parked Emirates plane at Manila’s International Airport, Philippines on Monday, March 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Returning travelers feel relief

Early Tuesday, Romanian tourists arrived in Bucharest after traveling from Israel to Cairo to escape the conflict. Hundreds of Romanian Orthodox Church pilgrims were stranded in Israel while visiting Bethlehem on a trip led by Romanian priests when the war broke out. The group was forced to cut their trip short and return to Romania.

Pilgrim Mariana Muicaru said she was terrified during her time in Israel as rockets flew across the sky.

“We called our children at 3 a.m. to ask forgiveness because we might die and to tell them we love them and to let them know that it’s over for us,” she told The Associated Press.

Antonia, 5 years old, sits on suitcases upon arriving at the Henri Coanda International airport after being evacuated from Israel via Egypt on a commercial flight in Otopeni, Romania, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

The previous night, British travelers who were trapped in the United Arab Emirates were relieved to land safely in London’s Heathrow Airport.

Adam Barton, who was traveling with his family from Abu Dhabi, said he was getting alerts as he was in the airport before he left.

“We had an alert on our phone, saying to get away from the windows for potential missile attacks,” Barton told Sky News.

A flight from Dubai, meanwhile, landed in Serbia’s capital, Belgrade, on early Tuesday morning with roughly 200 passengers.

One traveler told the state RTS broadcaster he’d been in a hotel waiting and was given 15 minutes to pack.

Samuel Petrequin in Paris, Giada Zampano in Rome, Nicolae Dumitrache in Bucharest, Romania, Samy Magdy in Cairo, and Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Serbia, contributed to this report.

By MICHELLE CHAPMAN, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — The average price for a gallon of gasoline jumped 11 cents overnight to about $3.11 in the U.S., according to motor club AAA.

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Gas prices were already rising before the U.S. launched strikes on Iran as refiners switch over to summer blends of fuel, but crude futures have risen sharply this week because of the war.

On Tuesday, oil futures soared to levels not seen in more than a year as Iran launched a series of retaliatory attacks, including a drone strike on the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia.

Benchmark U.S. crude jumped 8.6% to $77.36 a barrel.

Brent crude, the international standard, added 6.7% to $81.29 a barrel. Global oil prices jumped to start the week over concerns that the war will clog the global flow of crude.

By MUNIR AHMED and ABDUL QAHAR AFGHAN

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Afghan forces attacked Pakistani military positions along the border early on Tuesday, triggering intense clashes that left 67 Afghan troops and one Pakistani soldier dead, officials in Islamabad said as cross-border fighting between the two countries entered its fifth day.

The Taliban defense ministry in Kabul, the Afghan capital, rejected Pakistan’s claim. A ministry spokesman said Afghan forces in the past 24 hours repelled Pakistani attacks, destroying about a dozen military posts and killing four Pakistani soldiers.

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The latest Afghan-Pakistan escalation erupted last week with Afghanistan launching attacks on Thursday in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes the previous weekend. Since then, Pakistan has carried out operations along the border and declared it was in an “open war” with Afghanistan, alarming the international community.

On Tuesday, Pakistan said Afghan forces attacked Pakistan’s military in two sections of the two countries’ border.

It said 16 locations were attacked along the southern part of the border, in the southwestern districts of Qilla Saifullah, Nushki and Chaman in Pakistan’s Balochistan province.

Pakistani troops killed 27 members of the Afghan forces there and “successfully repelled these multiple attacks,” Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said.

Tarar said on X that another wave of attacks hit 25 locations along the northern part of the border, in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where Pakistani troops killed 40 members of the Afghan security forces. The spokesman did not say where the Pakistani soldier was killed.

In Kabul, defense ministry spokesman Enayatullah Khawarazmi slammed the Islamabad statements as “baseless.”

The border area — where militant groups, including al-Qaida and the Islamic State group, are also active — is not accessible to the media and the Associated Press could not independently confirm any casualty reports.

In past escalations and cross-border exchanges of fire, Pakistan and Afghanistan have both repeatedly claimed to inflicting heavy losses on the other side.

In the five days of fighting, Tarar said Pakistani forces have so far killed 464 Afghan security force members and injured 665. Khawarazmi said in a statement that so far, 28 Afghan soldiers have died and 42 others have been wounded in the fighting.

Smoke emits from the Afghan side as trucks are parked along roadside following cross-border clashes between Pakistan and Afghan forces, at near Torkham border crossing point, Pakistan, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Maaz Awan)

Islamabad has long accused Kabul of providing a safe haven to militants fighting the Pakistani government — charges that Afghanistan’s Taliban government denies.

Khawarazmi reiterated that stand on Tuesday. “I repeat once again that we will not allow any person or group to use our territory against other countries,” he said.

Separately, Hamdullah Fitrat, the Afghan government’s deputy spokesman, accused Pakistan of violating Afghan airspace and targeting homes, mosques, religious schools or madrasas and other civilian targets in Kabul, Laghman, Nangarhar, Paktia, Kandahar and Kunar provinces, as well as targeting refugee camps.

He said these attacks have resulted in the death of 110 civilians, including 65 women and children.

Fitrat said the Taliban government of Afghanistan considers its “legitimate right” to protect their people and will “fight against the enemy … until this aggression is stopped.”

Meanwhile, the U.N. mission in Kabul called for an immediate halt to the fighting, warning that the conflict is worsening Afghanistan’s dire humanitarian situation. According to its preliminary figures, since last Thursday, at least 42 civilians have been killed and 104 injured, including women and children.

On Monday, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari defended the ongoing fighting with Afghanistan, saying Islamabad had tried all forms of diplomacy before targeting militants operating from Afghan territory.

He asked Kabul to disarm groups responsible for attacks in Pakistan.

Pakistan has experienced a surge in violence in recent months, which it blames on the outlawed Pakistani Taliban — known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP. Islamabad says the TTP operates from Afghan territory and have the protection of Afghanistan’s Taliban government. Kabul denies the accusations.

The latest fighting has ended a ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkey in October. Talks in Istanbul failed to produce a permanent agreement, and Pakistan has said that operations will continue until Afghanistan takes verifiable steps to rein in the TTP and other militants.

The Pakistani Taliban are a separate group but allied with the Afghan Taliban and since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the TTP has become emboldened and escalated its attacks in Pakistan.

Abdul Qahar Afghan reported from Kabul, Afghanistan. Associated Press writer Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

BY ABBY SEWELL and BASSEM MROUE

BEIRUT (AP) — Israel sent additional troops into southern Lebanon Tuesday and ordered residents of more than 80 villages to evacuate as the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group said it is ready for an open war, escalating the already volatile situation in the region.

The latest exchanges started after Hezbollah fired rockets and drones early Monday toward northern Israel. Israel retaliated with a wave of airstrikes that killed 52 people in Lebanon, including a Palestinian militant and a Hezbollah intelligence official in Beirut’s southern suburbs. More than 150 people were wounded and tens of thousands displaced.

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Hezbollah said Tuesday morning it fired two salvos of rockets toward northern Israel while Israeli airstrikes overnight damaged a building housing Hezbollah’s TV and radio stations. Beirut’s southern suburbs were subjected to a series of strikes in the early afternoon Tuesday that came without warning, and the Israeli military later said it targeted Hezbollah officials.

The Israeli military’s Arabic spokesman, Avichay Adraee, issued a warning for residents of more than 80 villages and towns asking them to leave, adding that people should not return to these areas until further notice.

A senior Hezbollah official said that after more than a year of abiding by a ceasefire as Israel’s strikes continued on Lebanon, the group’s patience has ended, leaving it with no option “but to return to resistance” and fight an open war with Israel.

“The Zionist enemy wanted an open war, which it has not stopped since the ceasefire agreement,” Mohamoud Komati said “So let it be an open war.”

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun told the ambassadors of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the U.S., France and Egypt Tuesday that Hezbollah has been firing rockets from areas north of the Litani river. The Lebanese government says it has disarmed Hezbollah south of the river, along the border with Israel, and Lebanese troops are in full control of the area between the river and the border.

Shortly before Aoun spoke, the Israeli military said it has sent additional troops into southern Lebanon and took new positions on several strategic points close to the border, while Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the Lebanese army was evacuating some of its positions along the border.

Adraee, the spokesman, posted on X that the troops’ move inside Lebanon is part of efforts to bolster the forward defense system and create an addition layer of security.

A Lebanese military official confirmed to The Associated Press that Israeli troops moved into several areas in Lebanon, adding that the Lebanese army is “repositioning” in the area.

The U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, said its peacekeepers observed Israeli forces crossing into Lebanon in several areas Tuesday morning “before returning south of the Blue Line,” referring to the border between the two countries.

Israel launched a ground invasion of Lebanon in October 2024 during its last war with Hezbollah. It withdrew from most of southern Lebanon after a U.S.-brokered ceasefire halted the fighting in November 2024 but has continued to occupy five points on the Lebanese side of the border since then.

After the ceasefire, Israel continued to carry out near-daily strikes, primarily in southern Lebanon, saying that Hezbollah has been trying to rebuild its forces in the area.

Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel a day after the militant Palestinian group Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, triggering the war in Gaza. After months of low-level fighting, the conflict escalated into a full-scale war in September 2024 before a U.S. brokered ceasefire nominally halted the fighting two months later.