Nearly 400 Chinese nationals, including tourists, short-term visitors and international students, have now been safely evacuated from Israel, said Chinese Ambassador to Israel Xiao Junzheng on Friday.
In a video link interview with the China Global Television Network (CGTN), Xiao talked about the situation in Tel Aviv, capital of Israel, and the efforts to evacuate Chinese nationals from Israel.
"Since the early morning of June 13, the situation in Tel Aviv, where our embassy is located,has been quite intense. Almost every day we can hear the sound of missiles hitting the ground, as well as the explosions from aerial interceptors. In fact, just an hour before this interview, my colleagues and I had to take shelter in the embassy's underground bunker [due to an air raid siren]. At this very moment during our interview, I would say it's relatively safe. But the sirens could go off again at any time," he said.
The Chinese Embassy in Israel said it will continue actively guiding Chinese workers and personnel from corporates and construction projects to prepare for evacuation, so as to significantly reduce the number of non-essential personnel on the ground.
"Based on the actual situation on the ground, the embassy has adopted a dual-track approach. One is through our official WeChat account and website, we've been publishing all kinds of safety advisories and evacuation instructions to help everyone identify the safest and most efficient evacuation routes. At the moment, as the Israeli government has implemented a no-fly zone policy, there are no commercial flights in or out. So the most realistic evacuation routes are via land borders with Jordan and Egypt," the ambassador said.
"On the one hand, we've been issuing these travel notices to guide and advise overseas Chinese in Israel to leave the country by crossing those land borders to Jordan or Egypt, and then take connecting flights back to China. That's one method. The other method is the coordinated evacuations led by the embassy. We are coordinating and organizing groups of overseas Chinese to evacuate in an orderly manner. In fact, we have already completed the second round of coordinated evacuations today. The second batch included Chinese students, staff from Chinese enterprises, some members of the local Chinese community, and compatriots from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Macao Special Administrative Region. So far, nearly 400 people have been evacuated," he said.
Nearly 400 Chinese nationals evacuated from Israel: ambassador
