European countries scramble to offer citizens flights from Lebanon

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France joined the UK, Germany and Russia in scaling up operations for citizens to leave Lebanon on Thursday, amid Israeli strikes that have killed more than 1,000 people in the past week.

Officials said boosting the number of departures did not represent a full-scale evacuation process, though France has taken precautionary measures by sending a helicopter carrier to the eastern Mediterranean and the UK has sent troops to Cyprus for contingency planning.

France had asked Lebanon's national carrier, Middle East Airlines (MEA), to schedule two extra flights with a capacity of 200 seats for its citizens, and the first group of people landed at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport overnight. There are more than 20,000 French citizens living in Lebanon.

“These are not evacuations at this stage,” a French diplomat said. “These are commercial MEA flights on which we have managed to secure seats for our nationals who are in a vulnerable situation”, including pregnant women and young children.

This week, Germany also evacuated its citizens who are medically vulnerable and non-essential embassy staff. Many commercial airlines have suspended flights to and from Beirut.

The EU said it was helping its member states to co-ordinate evacuation efforts but is not chartering planes. “We are of course working closely with member states to support consular co-ordination in this critical moment,” EU Commission spokeswoman Nabila Massrali said.

The commission, the bloc's executive arm, announced on Thursday an extra €30 million ($33 million) in humanitarian aid for Lebanon to provide urgent food assistance, shelter and health care among other essential support.

EU member Cyprus is expected to act as a hub for large-scale evacuations should they take place – a role it has endorsed in previous wars in the Middle East and Africa. Foreign Affairs Minister Constantinos Kombos said his country had activated its evacuation plan.

“We have been in full co-operation with a number of countries that have already expressed either clear interest or have inquired on how we can co-ordinate in the event that evacuations are needed,” he said on Wednesday. “We stand ready to assist in every way possible.”

Moscow chartered a flight for 60 of its diplomats to leave Beirut on Thursday. About 3,000 nationals of Russia and other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States have expressed their intention to leave Lebanon, according to Russian state-owned news agency Tass.

The UK has organised departures for its citizens from Beirut, which started on Wednesday. Additional flights are expected to continue “for as long as the security situation allows”, said the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office.

Its statement came a day after Defence Secretary John Healey visited Cyprus, where 700 British troops and other personnel are stationed to prepare for the possible evacuations. Last week, there were around 5,000 British nationals, dual nationals and dependents in Lebanon, according to government estimates.

British nationals will not be able to bring relatives with them to the UK, outside of the usual visa regimes. Non-British dependents will require a visa that is granted for longer than 6 months, with no special process being issued given the current context, The National understands.

This regime was criticised by British-Palestinians earlier this year, who spent tens of thousands of dollars obtaining evacuation permits for relatives in Gaza, and faced additional fees and months of waiting to secure visas for their homeless relatives to come to the UK.

Passengers are required to pay 350 each for a place on government chartered flights.

Belgium has said that it would start supporting its citizens wishing to leave, but so far only 100 out of 1,800 have done so, Foreign Affairs Minister Hadja Lahbib said on X. Two Belgian reporters were injured in an Israeli strike on Beirut on Thursday and were treated in a local hospital.

“The minister has not announced any evacuations,” an official told The National. “We are talking about assisted returns, in which we support Belgians who want to leave the country.”

Israeli raids on Lebanon continued on Thursday, after seven of its soldiers died in clashes with Hezbollah in the south of the country. It says it aims to secure its northern border after nearly a year of hostilities with the Iran-backed group.

Hezbollah began strikes on Israeli troops in October, a day after Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel in which about 1,200 were killed and 240 abducted. Israel's subsequent strikes and ground offensive in Gaza have killed more than 41,700 people and injured almost 97,000, says the enclave's Health Ministry.

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