Several Western governments, including the United States, the United Kingdom and France, have called on their citizens to leave Lebanon immediately as tensions rise in the Middle East following the assassination of Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh, blamed by Iran on Israel and the US.
Haniyeh’s killing in Tehran on Wednesday, hours after the Israeli assassination of Hezbollah’s military chief Fuad Shukr in Beirut, has triggered pledges of vengeance from Iran and the so-called “axis of resistance“.
Lebanese group Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian group Hamas, and the Israeli army have been trading cross-border fire since the Israeli assault on Gaza began in October after Hamas led a rare attack inside the Israeli territory, killing an estimated 1,139 people and taking roughly 240 others captive.
Iran-backed groups from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria have already been drawn into Israel’s nearly 10-month war on Gaza. But the assassinations this week of Haniyeh and Shukr have heightened fears of a regional conflagration.
On Saturday, Israel’s ally, the US, said it would move additional warships and fighter jets to the region and asked its citizens in Lebanon to leave on “any ticket available”.
The US embassy in Beirut asked its nationals to “prepare contingency plans” if they choose to stay in Lebanon and be prepared to “shelter in place for an extended period of time”.
The UK’s Foreign Office also urged its citizens in Lebanon to leave “now while commercial options remain available”.
On Sunday, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs issued a travel advisory, inviting its citizens in Lebanon to leave “as soon as possible” due to the risk of a military escalation.
