Passengers look at schedule flights screen at Rafic Hariri International Airport after their flights were delayed or cancelled in Beirut on July 29.ANWAR AMRO/Getty Images
The family of Canadians strode briskly through Beirut’s airport, relieved to see that the departures board listed their flight as scheduled to leave on Monday evening, after it had been cancelled the night before amid fears of large-scale Israeli military action against Lebanon.
“Perfect timing,” 19-year-old Ralph Nabhan exhaled, as he and his sister and parents rushed toward the check-in desk for their flight to Cairo, then onward to Paris and eventually to Ottawa near their home in Kanata, Ont. Flights into and out of Rafic Hariri International Airport had been cancelled the day before over concerns that Israel’s retaliation for a Saturday rocket attack that killed 12 children in the Golan Heights might include strikes on the airport and other Lebanese infrastructure.
Israel and its ally the United States say the attack was carried out by Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia based in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah has denied involvement, claiming the children could have been killed by an errant Israeli air-defence missile. Lebanon’s government has called for an international investigation into the incident.
Lebanon has been on tenterhooks since Sunday night, when Israel’s war cabinet met and issued a statement saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant had been given the power to decide the “manner and timing” of the country’s response, without giving further details.
Youths from the Druze minority weep at a makeshift memorial for 12 children and teens killed in a rocket strike on a soccer field, in the village of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.Leo Correa/The Associated Press
Mr. Nabhan, who studies software engineering at the University of Ottawa, said the family’s month-long trip to visit relatives had gone well, but they were glad to be heading out. “Right now, because of what happened, I’m a bit scared,” he said. “It’s the right time to leave.”
Adding to the rising concern, the U.S. embassy in Beirut posted a video message on its social-media accounts from Rena Bitter, assistant secretary of state for consular affairs. In it, Ms. Bitter warned U.S. citizens to make plans to leave Lebanon via commercial means “while local communications and transportation infrastructure are intact and operating normally.”
Ms. Bitter added that, should commercial options become unavailable, “individuals already in Lebanon should be prepared to shelter in place for long periods of time.”
Canada’s embassy in Beirut sharpened the wording Monday of its own long-standing advice for Canadians to avoid travel to Lebanon. “Do not travel to Lebanon. Think about the potential consequences,” the new advice reads. There are an estimated 45,000 to 50,000 Canadian citizens in Lebanon.
On Monday evening, a Canadian embassy e-mail repeated the advice “to leave Lebanon while some commercial flights are still available” and warned that there was no plan to evacuate Canadians who remained in the country “and you should not rely on the Government of Canada for any future assisted departures or evacuation.” The e-mail repeated the U.S. warning about being ready to possibly shelter in place for a prolonged period of time.
Mourners from the Druze minority surround the bodies of some of the 12 children and teens killed in a rocket strike at a soccer field in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights on July 28.Leo Correa/The Associated Press
Also on Monday, Mr. Netanyahu visited the soccer field where the 12 children had been killed – all of them between the ages of 11 and 16, and members of the Druze religious minority – and vowed revenge. Thirty other people were injured in the attack. “The State of Israel will not and cannot ignore this. Our response will come, and it will be severe,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
The Israeli leader, however, was heckled by some at the scene, who shouted “murderer” and “get out!” Many Druze living in the Israeli-controlled Golan, which Israel seized and occupied in a 1967 war, still consider themselves Syrian.
Though there were tit-for-tat cross strikes across the Israel-Lebanon border during the day on Monday, including one in which two Hezbollah members were killed, both sides appeared to be bracing for something much larger.
The U.S. has been engaged in frantic diplomacy, trying to persuade Israel to limit the scope of its operation to avoid plunging the region into a second all-out war alongside the 297-day-old conflict in Gaza, which began on Oct. 7 when Hamas – which is also backed by Iran – staged an invasion of Israel that left more than 1,100 people dead.
Israel’s invasion of Gaza, which was intended to destroy Hamas and rescue the more than 250 Israelis and foreigners taken hostage, has left more than 39,000 Palestinians dead, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, even as 115 Israelis remain missing in Gaza, according to a count by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper. None of those numbers differentiate between fighters and civilians.
The fighting across the Israel-Lebanon border started Oct. 8 when Hezbollah began firing rockets and drones in what it said was an act of “solidarity” with Hamas. Since then, 17 soldiers and 24 civilians have been killed in northern Israel and the Golan Heights, according to the Israeli government, while 386 Hezbollah members and more than 100 civilians have been killed in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah said. Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes on both sides of the border.
Mitchell Barak, an Israeli political analyst who worked for Mr. Netanyahu early in his career, said the Israeli Prime Minister is under pressure to order an operation that punishes Hezbollah sufficiently for the deaths of the children, without necessarily opening a second front while Israel is still at war in Gaza.
“The question is whether it’s going to be a massive retaliation which could lead to all-out war, which Iran has threatened to get involved in,” Mr. Barak said. “They have the capability of raining missiles on us, so it would be a war where people in Israel are going to be in bomb shelters. I’m not sure people are so interested in that.”
Lebanon is also hoping to avoid a repeat of the last all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah, in 2006, which began when Hezbollah fighters crossed the border and attacked an Israeli patrol, killing three soldiers and kidnapping two others. The fighting lasted for 33 days and left 165 Israelis and 1,191 Lebanese dead.
“Regional escalation would have a devastating impact on civilians and civilian infrastructure. In Lebanon, we’re already seeing the destruction of entire villages in the south at the hands of the Israeli military,” said Aya Mazjoub, deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa office of Amnesty International, referring to the fighting since Oct. 8. “We fear that with an escalation, more civilians will come under fire.”
Back at the Beirut airport, 19-year-old Meriam Chahine was staring at the departures board, looking for an update on her flight to Amman, Jordan – and then home to Michigan – that had been scheduled to depart Monday at 8 a.m., but had been repeatedly delayed, and now was scheduled to leave at 8:45 p.m.
Ms. Chahine, who said she had barely gone outside during the three months she was in Lebanon with her father out of fear over the security situation, was anxious to get out. “Quite frankly, I’m really worried the flight’s never going to take off, that they’re going to shut down the airport before we get to our flight,” she said.
Less than an hour later, Royal Jordanian announced it was joining several other foreign carriers in cancelling all flights until Wednesday.