The Secretary of State for Portuguese Communities had told Lusa on 3 March that there were about 400 requests for the repatriation of Portuguese citizens in the Middle East, 63 of them in Israel, where Portugal is preparing an extraction, partly by land.

The United States and Israel launched a military attack against Iran on 28 February, killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader since 1989, during the offensive.

The Iranian Leadership Council currently leads the country.

Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and launched retaliatory attacks against targets in Israel, US bases, and other infrastructure in countries in the region such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon, Jordan, Oman, Iraq, Cyprus, and Turkey.