Travelers rush to leave Lebanon amid spiking tensions, canceled flights
Lebanon’s only airport thrown into chaos as embassies urge their citizens to leave as soon as possible amid fear of all-out regional war
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Travelers waited in long lines at Beirut airport on Sunday, some after cutting summer holidays short, as airlines have canceled flights and fears have grown of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah.
“I’m not happy to leave. I wanted to spend the whole summer in Lebanon then go back to work” in France, said Joelle Sfeir from the crowded departures hall at Beirut airport.
But “my flight was canceled and I was forced to book another ticket today,” she told AFP.
“I cut my trip short so I could find a flight,” she added.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group has attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis since October 8, saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.
But the killing Wednesday of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, hours after the Israeli assassination in Beirut of Hezbollah’s military chief Fuad Shukr, has sparked vows of vengeance from Iran and other Tehran-backed groups, including Hezbollah, and sent regional tensions skyrocketing. Israel has claimed responsibility for killing Shukr but has not officially commented on Haniyeh.
Several airlines including Lufthansa and Air France have delayed or suspended flights to Lebanon, and countries have issued urgent calls for foreign nationals to leave in recent days.
France did so Sunday, warning of “a highly volatile” situation, while the US embassy in Lebanon a day earlier urged its citizens to leave on “any ticket available.”
Reservations canceled
Fears have spiked that months of cross-border violence could degenerate into all-out conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, who last fought a devastating war in the summer of 2006.
Embassies have repeatedly urged their citizens to leave Lebanon while commercial flights are still available.
Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport is Lebanon’s only airport. It has been targeted in the country’s civil war and in previous fighting with Israel, including in the last war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006.
In the departures hall, families sat on metal seats, children lying in their parents’ laps, while passengers watched over piles of bags and checked television screens for flight departures for locations including Istanbul, Amman and Cairo.
The tensions and cancelations have thrown travel plans into chaos for many Lebanese who work or study abroad and who usually use their annual summer holiday to visit relatives and friends back home.
Gretta Moukarzel, who runs a travel agency near Beirut, said she had “received a flood of calls from clients who want to leave and who fear being stuck in Lebanon.”
Finding seats has been difficult because of the number of canceled flights and the increased demand, particularly for European countries, she told AFP by telephone.
“A large number of Lebanese who were coming to Lebanon for the holiday have canceled their reservations,” she added.
Flights postponed
Passengers also waited in long queues at check-in booths and again to pass through security.
Sirine Hakim, 22, said she had spent almost three weeks in Lebanon to see family and had to leave due to work commitments abroad.
“I was supposed to depart yesterday, but my flight was postponed,” she said.
Near the arrivals area, usually crowded during the summer season, just a small number of people were waiting for loved ones.
Along the airport road that passes through Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, a huge billboard showed the images of Hamas’s Haniyeh and Hezbollah’s Shukr reading: “We will seek revenge.”
The slain pair were pictured flanking Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander and head of its foreign operations arm the Quds Force who was killed in a US drone strike in Iraq in 2020.
The clashes along the Israel-Lebanon border have resulted in 25 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 18 IDF soldiers and reservists.
Hezbollah has named 391 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. In Lebanon, another 69 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have been killed.
