More commercial flights are on offer this weekend to get Britons out of Lebanon, after the UK Government urged them to escape an Israeli military campaign against Hezbollah.
An estimated 5,000 Britons holding dual nationality and their relatives have remained in Lebanon despite the warnings, including several hundred who hold only UK citizenship.
It is understood that the Government does not believe it needs to organise an emergency evacuation yet, given the availability of commercial flights and ships, but UK armed forces in Cyprus remain on standby with 700 troops returning to the region this week.
Airlines are already laying on extra flights to accommodate increased demand out of Beirut.
But officials say there is no large-scale exodus out of the country entirely, with internal movement confined to people fleeing the Israeli offensive in the south of Lebanon to head further north.
UK citizens are being urged by the Foreign Office to register their presence. The UK visa office in Beirut meanwhile remains open for relatives of Britons who wish to join them on flights to Britain.
The fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has the potential to spill into a wider war “that no one can control”, Sir Keir Starmer warned at the United Nations in New York on Thursday.
But Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to fight on, as he prepares to deliver his own speech later on Friday to the UN General Assembly.
Emily Thornberry, chairwoman of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, warned that any full-scale ground invasion by Israel into southern Lebanon could play into Hezbollah’s hands.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, she said that Netanyahu’s Right-wing government should pay heed to a call from Western and Gulf countries to cease fire with Hezbollah as part of a wider truce with Hamas in Gaza.
“We don’t know whether or not Israel is bluffing about a ground war,” the Labour MP said.
“We do know that in 2006 that they got very bogged down [in Lebanon], that at the moment they may be ahead because they’re using air power and surprise, but a ground war may well be different.
“And actually, the poor Lebanese, who you know many of whom do not want Hezbollah in the bottom of their country, certainly don’t want to have the Israelis.
“And Hezbollah may well end up with more legitimacy as a result of that ground invasion.”
