{"id":314257,"date":"2026-03-05T12:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T12:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/314257\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T12:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T12:23:08","slug":"nz-defence-force-planes-prepare-to-fly-to-middle-east-for-evacuations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/314257\/","title":{"rendered":"NZ Defence Force planes prepare to fly to Middle East for evacuations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/4JS87IX_AFP__20260305__99ZT4GQ__v1__HighRes__IranIsraelUsWar_jpg.jpeg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" alt=\"A plume of smoke rises after a strike on the Iranian capital of Tehran on March 5, 2026. Israel pounded Tehran with fresh strikes and Iran targeted Kurdish guerilla groups in Iraq on March 5 as a spiralling war in the Middle East engulfed the entire region. (Photo by ATTA KENARE \/ AFP)\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\nA plume of smoke rises after a strike on the Iranian capital of Tehran on 5 March, 2026.<br \/>\nPhoto: AFP \/ ATTA KENARE\n<\/p>\n<p>Follow the latest with our live blog above<\/p>\n<p>Foreign Minister Winston Peters says when conditions allow, NZDF planes will help New Zealanders get to locations where they can get on commercial flights home.<\/p>\n<p>He says they will not be long flights.<\/p>\n<p>The minister says at the speed at which potentially thousands of people need to be moved, it&#8217;s better they are taken to a safer place as fast as possible.<\/p>\n<p>The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said 3171 New Zealanders were registered with its service SafeTravel in the region.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/radionz.us6.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=211a938dcf3e634ba2427dde9&amp;id=b3d362e693\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero, a daily newsletter<\/a> curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A plume of smoke rises after a strike on the Iranian capital of Tehran on 5 March, 2026.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-314257","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}