Urgent calls for foreign nationals to leave Lebanon grew on Sunday with France warning of “a highly volatile” situation as Iran and its allies ready their response to the killings of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh and senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, which has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces since the Gaza war broke out in October, announced its fighters had fired a barrage of rockets at Israel’s north overnight.
Israeli forces kept bombarding the Gaza Strip, killing dozens of people at a school on Saturday, with no end in sight to its indiscriminate 10-month war on the territory.
France, Canada and Jordan were among the latest governments to call for their citizens to leave Lebanon.
“In a highly volatile security context”, French nationals were “urgently asked” to avoid travelling to Lebanon, and those already in the country “to make their arrangements now to leave… as soon as possible”, the foreign ministry in Paris said.
The United States and Britain have issued similar warnings.
France on Sunday also urged its nationals living in Iran to “temporarily leave”, warning Iranian airspace and airports could close.
Several Western airlines have suspended flights to Lebanon and other airports in the region.
