US, other governments urge citizens to leave Lebanon as threat of war looms
Amman, Jordan — A number of Western governments are urging their citizens to leave Lebanon as tensions between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants escalate.
Lebanon is bracing for an Israeli military response to a suspected Hezbollah rocket strike that killed 12 Druze children and young people on a football field in the Golan Heights on Saturday.
Israel has said it would retaliate and civilians are bracing for what officials said could be days of fighting.
The United States, Germany, Britain and France are among the governments issuing travel warnings to their citizens, calling on them to leave Lebanon immediately or avoid travel there as the risk of conflict widens.
Rena Bitter, assistant secretary for consular affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, told Americans in Lebanon to “create a crisis plan of action and leave before the crisis begins,” in a video on X, formerly Twitter.
“We recommend U.S. citizens develop a crisis plan of action and leave before a crisis begins. Regularly scheduled transportation is always the best option while local communications and transportation infrastructure are still intact and operating normally,” Bitter said.
Germany has told its citizens to urgently leave Lebanon, saying air travel could soon be suspended, and that a further escalation could stop air travel from Beirut airport.
Already, Germany’s Lufthansa, Swiss International Air Lines, Air France, and Turkish Airlines have suspended flights to Beirut, citing the security situation in Lebanon.
In remarks to CNN, Lebanon’s caretaker foreign minister, Abdullah Bou Habib, said the Lebanese government can do little to rein in Hezbollah, but added that the lines of communication remain open.
“The choice to us always is through bad and worse. I don’t think we can do it. But we always communicate with them. The prime minister, of course, the speaker speaks with them. There’s a lot of negotiations. To stop, no, because they started it in support of what’s going on in Gaza,” he said.
Hezbollah said two of its members were killed in an Israeli drone strike in southern Lebanon on Monday morning. Analyst Dania Koleilat Khatib said there is much uncertainty as to where Israel will hit in Lebanon.
Khatib, president of the Research Center for Cooperation and Peace Building in Beirut, told VOA “the two sides don’t want war, but are preparing for one.”
“Everyone is expecting a hit. The hit is coming. They don’t know how big it is, so the only message they’re passing on to Israel [is] that if you go beyond the rules of engagement, if you go deep, if you go into Beirut, they will respond,” Khatib said. “Many wars are not intentional. Mistakes can lead to war and that’s why we need a cease-fire.”
U.S. special envoy Amos Hochstein has expressed concern that “a miscalculation or an accident” involving civilians could force “either country to retaliate in a way that slides us into war.”
Targeting Beirut, he warned, could lead to a major escalation.