UP TO one million people could be forced to flee Lebanon in the largest refugee movement the country has ever seen, its prime minister warned today.
More than 720 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel’s war on its neighbours escalated on Monday.
PM Najib Mikati said: “The number of displaced people … could reach a million.”
He said there has been a large influx”of people fleeing from Lebanon’s south and east, adding that many of the displaced were not Lebanese. The country hosts a long-established population of Palestinians and some 1.5 million Syrians out of an estimated population of just over 5.3m.
Lebanese media reported that more than 36,000 Syrians and 41,300 Lebanese crossed the border into war-torn Syria in the past week.
The British government repeated its pleas today for calm in the Middle East, and Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the government has worked to “increase flights and secure seats” for British nationals leaving Lebanon.
A British woman with a five-year-old returning from Lebanon reported that Israeli air strikes had killed five members of her family 10 days before her wedding.
Sana Chamseddin said she felt guilt for escaping and leaving behind loved ones in “unsafe places,” while her husband Abbas said that bombs fell around them as they fled to Beirut airport.
About 5,000 British citizens are in Lebanon, and the United Nations said 118,000 Lebanese people have been displaced in recent days.
Campaigners and MPs continue to demand action against Israel from the British government.
MP Jeremy Corbyn called for an immediate full arms embargo and economic sanctions on Israel, saying: “Our common humanity demands nothing less.”
He wrote on Twitter: “The world could have stopped the genocide in Gaza. Instead our political leaders allowed Israel to act with total impunity. That is why they are now murdering hundreds of civilians in Lebanon, putting millions more lives across the region at risk.
“When will our government wake up to the horrors they have normalised? When will they call out this reckless aggression? Or do Arab lives not matter?”
Labour MP Zarah Sultana said: “At the UN, before Israel attacked Beirut, [Israeli PM Benjamin] Netanyahu called hospitals, schools and homes in Lebanon a legitimate target.
“Israel’s genocidal intent and violence in Gaza is being repeated in Lebanon. This is what Islamophobia, dehumanisation of brown lives and total impunity looks like.”
Israel said it killed another key Hezbollah official today after the group issued a statement on Saturday confirming the death of Hassan Nasrallah, its leader since 1992.
Nabil Qaouk, a member of Hezbollah’s central council, was killed in a raid by Israeli fighter jets, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) said, adding that 20 other leaders of varying ranks had been killed along with Mr Nasrallah.
Israel carried out dozens of further strikes across Lebanon today; the Lebanese health ministry said that 24 people were killed in one strike on Ain al-Delb — a town near the Southern city of Sidon.
Earlier, media reported more than 30 deaths in the day, including 17 from the same family.
In addition, Israel said it has carried out “large-scale” air strikes on Yemen, claiming it had hit “military targets of the Houthi terrorist regime:” power plants and ports allegedly being used to transport Iranian weapons to the region.
UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said he is “gravely concerned by the “dramatic escalation of events in Beirut.” He said: “This cycle of violence must stop now. All sides must step back from the brink.
“The people of Lebanon, the people of Israel, as well as the wider region, cannot afford an all-out war.”
In its statement confirming Mr Nasrallah’s death, Hezbollah vowed to “continue the holy war against the enemy and in support of Palestine.”
Israeli chief of staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said the elimination of the militant leader was “not the end of our toolbox,” suggesting further action was planned.
Ettie Higgins, Unicef’s deputy representative in Lebanon, said “thousands and thousands” of people have fled southern Beirut while hospitals were overwhelmed and water pumping stations destroyed.
She told the BBC: “Even the most basic essential services of healthcare and water are now being rapidly, rapidly depleted.
“There was already a humanitarian crisis in Lebanon given that it’s been hosting over one million refugees from Syria for over a decade, so it’s rapidly escalating into a catastrophe.”
The World Food Programme has launched an emergency operation in Lebanon to help distribute aid for up to one million people in the region. A further acceleration of the conflict this weekend underscored the need for an immediate humanitarian response,” the agency said in a statement.
The United States issued a statement today saying that it “retains the capability to deploy forces on short notice” and is determined to prevent Iran and Iranian-backed partners from “exploiting the situation or expanding the conflict.”
The Department of Defence “remains focused on the protection of US citizens and forces in the region, the [defence] of Israel and the de-escalation of the situation through deterrence and diplomacy,” the White House said.
It came after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Israel’s actions would not go unanswered. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ deputy commander Abbas Nilforoushan was killed in the Israeli strikes on Beirut on Friday.
