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(NEW YORK) — The State Department announced on Wednesday that a charter flight for American citizens stuck in the Middle East was en route to the United States — days after the war with Iran left thousands of American travelers stranded as combat operations led to the closure of airspace around the region.

The department said the flight is “part of our ongoing efforts to assist Americans return home” and said additional flights will be departing from the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

The move comes as hundreds of thousands of Americans stranded across the Middle East are trying to leave the region, faced with canceled flights and other travel disruptions. 

Chris Elliott, a pastor from Lexington, North Carolina, told ABC News that he and his family were stranded while visiting sites in Jerusalem. He said they ended up in a bomb shelter as sirens sounded and incoming missiles were intercepted.

“We want Americans to be on American soil right now,” Elliott said.

Eliott’s daughter, Riley, said it’s been frustrating and frightening to be forced to shelter in place since the joint U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran began on Saturday.

“The scariest for me was trying to go to bed at night and then being woken up by the sounds of sirens,” Riley Elliott told ABC News.

The U.S. State Department issued an advisory on Monday, three days into the military operation, urging Americans to immediately leave 14 countries in the region via commercial flights, but stranded U.S. citizens have said that’s become extremely difficult, given the significant disruptions to air travel.

The Trump administration is facing some criticism for apparently not having a plan in place to get American citizens out of harm’s way ahead of the joint operation.

Responding to a question on Tuesday from ABC News about why so many Americans became stuck in the Middle East absent any advance warning of the attack on Iran, President Donald Trump said, “Well, because it happened all very quickly.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Wednesday press briefing that the U.S. did communicate the danger of traveling to the region.

“There was many signs, put out by the State Department,” Leavitt said. “The secretary of state issued level four travel advisories dating back to January for many of these countries in the region,” adding that they were “advising extreme caution and do not travel alerts to Americans in the region.”

However, a review of travel advisories issued by the State Department indicates that prior to the start of the conflict, of the the 14 countries American travelers were later urged to depart, eight of them were only listed at a Level 1 or Level 2 — meaning to exercise normal precautions or increased caution.

Leavitt also claimed that since the start of the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, over 17,500 Americans “have safely returned home from the Middle East, with over 8,500 American citizens returning home to the United States just yesterday alone.”

Multiple U.S. embassies in the region, including some that have been attacked, have said they are unable to help citizens trying to leave.

“Our embassies and our diplomatic facilities are under direct attack from a terroristic regime,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Tuesday in Washington.

Asked if there were plans in place to evacuate Americans before the attack took place, Rubio said, “That’s the plan we’re trying to carry out.”

“The problem is, or the challenge we are facing, is airspace closures,” Rubio said, adding that some airports were closed after being hit in strikes. “So, that’s a challenge, but rest assured, we are confident that we are going to be able to assist every American.”

Odies Turner, a private chef from South Carolina, told ABC News that he’s been stuck in his hotel in Doha, Qatar, since the military operation began. He said the unexpected experience of being in a war has left him “frustrated, anxious” and feeling helpless.

“How do you expect us to leave a country where the airspace is closed? People are really stranded here,” Turner said in a self-video recorded on Tuesday. “I really don’t know what to do. I’ve reached out to the embassy, consulate and airlines. There’s no information on when I will get back home. It’s a mess.”

American Lisa Butler said the military conflict left her and her family, who were part of a large travel group, stranded in Abu Dhabi before they were evacuated to Dubai.

“We were standing … outside of this beautiful mosque, looking up in the sky and seeing these missiles that have been intercepted,” Butler told ABC News about how she and her family learned while in Abu Dhabi that they were vulnerable to a major military conflict breaking out in the region.

Oliver Sims, an American from Texas, told ABC News that he has been stuck in Qatar.

“I was just a few minutes ago, listening to some explosions that are going off above my head,” Sims said. “And, you know, I know that officials have said use commercial means, but there are really no commercial means here for us to use. So it’s really difficult to try and figure out a way out.”

Asked to describe conditions in Qatar, Sims said that he has been awakened at night by “extremely loud explosions” that shook the windows of his hotel room.

“I looked out my window and I saw a bunch of debris that was raining down outside of my hotel window,” Sims said. “And it’s very jarring, too, because it’s not just how loud it is, just how it actually physically shakes you. The rumbling is really, really just as violent.”

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President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff revealed in an interview this week that Iranian negotiators told him in the lead-up to the U.S.-Israeli military operation in Iran that they had enough enriched uranium to “make 11 nuclear bombs.”

But since the major combat operations were launched on Saturday with the intent of crushing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the administration has yet to publicly produce any concrete evidence on the whereabouts of the nuclear material or who is in control of it. The Israel Defense Forces claimed that at least 40 top military commanders were killed in the opening strikes of the conflict.

In an interview on Fox News, Witkoff told host Sean Hannity that as soon as he and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, sat down with the Iranian negotiators for denuclearization talks last month, their counterparts spoke of their stockpile of enriched uranium.

“Jared and I opened up with the Iranian negotiators telling us they had the inalienable right to enrich all the nuclear fuel they possessed,” Witkoff said. “We, of course, responded that the president feels we have the inalienable right to stop you in your tracks.”

Witkoff claimed the Iranian negotiators openly shared details about their supply of nuclear material.

“In that first meeting, both the Iranian negotiators said to us directly with, you know, no shame, that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60% [enriched uranium] and they’re aware that that could make 11 nuclear bombs,” Witkoff said.

Witkoff said the 60% enriched uranium can be brought to weapons-grade in about a week and that the 20% enriched uranium can be brought to weapons-grade in three to four weeks.

“They manufacture their own centrifuges to enrich this material,” Witkoff said. “So, there’s almost no stopping them. They have an endless supply of it.”

The statement appears to contradict what the Pentagon said last summer about Iran’s ability to develop weapons-grade uranium following U.S. strikes on its nuclear facilities.

In July 2025, Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, said at a news conference that that the strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June set back Iran’s capability to develop a nuclear weapon by “closer to two years.”

“It’s not just … enriched uranium or centrifuges or things like that. We destroyed the components that they would need to build a bomb,” Parnell said at the time.

But on Tuesday, that assessment fell to the wayside as the administration defended the U.S. military operation by insisting Iran posed an imminent threat to Americans. A senior administration official told reporters in a briefing that among the factors in the operation was that Iran had the ability to rebuild those components destroyed in the bombing, including its own centrifuges. 

The official said a lot of the enriched uranium remained mostly in Isfahan with some still at Natanz and Fordo.

“It can be a long and cumbersome process in extracting it and covering it up,” the official said. “I think the first question is, where is it? The second question is, how do we get to it, and how do we get physical control? And then after that, it would be a decision of the president and department, the Department of War, CIA, as to whether we wanted to physically transport it or dilute it on premises.” 

Iran has stated numerous times that it doesn’t want nuclear weapons, but believes it has the right to use nuclear power for civilian purpose. It had also been part of a nuclear deal with the U.S., which Trump withdrew from during his first term.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told ABC’s “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday that the attack on his country was “unprovoked and unwarranted.” He said Iran was negotiating with the United States in good faith prior to the attacks.

“A deal was at our reach, and we left Geneva happily with the understanding that we can reach a deal next time we meet,” Araghchi said.

In their two public briefings on “Operation Epic Fury” in Iran, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not address what has become of Iran’s nuclear material since the widespread military strikes began on Saturday.

In several speeches since the attacks commenced, Trump has also not been specific about the status of Iran’s nuclear material.

Hegseth, Caine, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Secretary of State Marco Rubio conducted a closed-door briefing with members of the U.S. Senate and House on the Iran operation on Tuesday afternoon.

In a letter sent on Monday to the administration’s briefers, five top House Democrats — including Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Adam Smith, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee — asked for information on nuclear security in Iran.

“Who currently controls Iran’s nuclear facilities and materials, and what safeguards are in place to prevent diversion or proliferation, or complete loss of control?” the Democratic lawmakers asked in their letter.

But following the briefing, Meeks said the briefers offered few answers.

“Here we are again without answers. Here we are again without complete transparency,” Meeks said. “Here we are again trying to go around Congress.”

Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said the briefers provided “no additional” information on the imminent threat that prompted the military operation, adding, “There’s nothing that we got that you don’t have.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., challenged any suggestion that the Trump administration was unclear during their briefing with House members about their objectives in Iran. 

“This is really a very simple matter. It’s about the building of ballistic missiles. That’s what Iran was engaged in, and they were doing it at a speed and in a scale that was exceeding the ability of our regional allies to respond appropriately,” Johnson said. “This created an imminent and serious threat. It also gave them cover to continue with their nuclear ambitions.”

Johnson added, “As you know, we tried very hard to negotiate with them about that nuclear enrichment of uranium … and the buildup of their missiles was so important and so serious that the President of the United States, this president, thought that it was a great enough threat that we needed to act.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, said in a social media post on Tuesday that, based on the latest available satellite imagery, it “can now confirm some recent damage to entrance buildings of Iran’s underground Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant [FEP].”

“No radiological consequence expected and no additional impact detected at FEP itself, which was severely damaged in the June conflict,” the IAEA said in the post.

In June 2025, the U.S. and Israeli militaries launched “Operation Midnight Hammer,” targeting three of Iran’s nuclear facilities — Natanz, Fordo and Isfahan — with “bunker-buster” bombs, according to the White House.

At the time, Trump said the operation “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s key uranium enrichment sites.

In a speech on Monday at the White House, Trump said that after “Operation Midnight Hammer,” Iran attempted to rebuild its nuclear facilities in another location, “because they were unable to use the ones we so powerfully blew up.”

“In addition, the regime’s conventional ballistic missile program was growing rapidly and dramatically, and this posed a very clear, colossal threat to America and our forces stationed overseas,” Trump said. “The purpose of this fast-growing missile program was to shield their nuclear weapon development and make it extraordinarily difficult for anyone to stop them from making these highly forbidden, by us, nuclear weapons.”

The Institute for Science and International Security said in a statement on Tuesday that its analysis of satellite imagery indicates the Natanz nuclear complex, Iran’s main uranium enrichment site, was struck twice during Saturday’s joint U.S.-Israeli attack.

Neither the Trump administration nor the Israeli government have confirmed the alleged strikes on the Natanz complex.

Meanwhile, Israel targeted a compound near Tehran linked to the regime’s nuclear weapons “capabilities,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in statement Tuesday. 

After the U.S. targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities last year, Israel, which participated in the operation under the code-name “Rising Lion,” continued to track scientists connected to the Iran’s nuclear weapons program “and located their new location at this site in a manner that enabled a precise strike on the covert underground compound,” the statement said.

“The strike removes a key component in the Iranian regime’s capability to develop nuclear weapons and joins a series of strikes conducted during Operation ‘Rising Lion’ that were essential to eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat,” the IDF said.

-ABC News’ Mary Kekatos and Jordana Miller contributed to this report.

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