Foreign Office simulates evacuation of thousands of Britons from Lebanon
Jane Merrick
The Foreign Office is urging Britons to leave Lebanon immediately since the assassinations of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders by Israel
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inews.co.uk
Foreign Secretary David Lammy is overseeing a test-run for a potential emergency evacuation of thousands of Britons from Lebanon in case the situation in the Middle East deteriorates.

The Foreign Office has been urging British citizens to leave Lebanon immediately since the assassinations of a senior Hezbollah leader and the political leader of Hamas by Israel last week.

The killings have sparked fears of a retaliatory strike on Israel by Hezbollah or Iran, which backs the Lebanon-based militant group and Hamas.

Britons are being urged to leave Lebanon by whatever commercial flights are available as airlines begin to suspend flights.

The Foreign Secretary is chairing a meeting in Whitehall on Monday to “thoroughly test” the evacuation plans under simulation exercise, but in the hope that they won’t be necessary, a source said.

There are currently no plans for the UK government to charter its own planes to evacuate Britons but if all airlines suspend flights from Beirut then those emergency flights may be necessary.

Mr Lammy, who travelled to the Middle East alongside Defence Secretary John Healey last week, is continuing to engage diplomatically to try to lower temperatures in the region, the source added.

Last week there were an estimated 16,000 Britons in the country, and it is believed there are still thousands remaining. Families of UK diplomats are already in the process of leaving.

Britons are being urged to register their presence with the British embassy.

Last Tuesday an Israeli strike killed Fuad Shukr, a Hezbollah senior military commander. The next day Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran.

Iran has warned of a “grand punishment” facing Israel in response.

On Sunday Mr Lammy and other G7 foreign ministers issued a joint statement urging all sides in the Middle East to step back from a possible all-out war.

They said: “We, the G7 Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America and the High Representative of the EU, express our deep concern at the heightened level of tension in the Middle East which threatens to ignite a broader conflict in the region.

“We urge all involved parties once again to refrain from perpetuating the current destructive cycle of retaliatory violence, to lower tensions and engage constructively toward de-escalation. No country or nation stands to gain from a further escalation in the Middle East.”

Air France and Lufthansa are among airlines to have already suspended flights to and from Lebanon.

At a briefing on Monday, the Israeli government warned Iran and the militant groups it supports that any attack on Israel would be met with force.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman David Mencer said Israel was facing a “multi-front war against Iran’s axis of evil” and that it was “preparing for any scenario both offensively and defensively”. He added that the mood in Israel was of “defiance and determination”, adding: “We will respond and we will exact a heavy price for any act of aggression against us.”