Turkey is preparing to evacuate its citizens from Lebanon as well as other foreign nationals who request it, as tensions in the region between Hezbollah and Israel grow and the Israeli government rejects the international call for a ceasefire.
Turkish Defence Ministry sources quoted by Turkish media confirmed that preparations for a possible evacuation are underway and that the Turkish Armed Forces have ‘the capability and resources to carry out any mission assigned to them to safely evacuate our citizens or foreigners from Lebanon’.
‘Preliminary planning and preparations for a possible evacuation operation are already underway,’ the defence source said, adding that similar operations have previously been successfully carried out in other countries and that Ankara is following minute-by-minute developments in Lebanon in case it becomes necessary to order an immediate evacuation.
Israeli air strikes killed yesterday alone at least 72 people in Lebanon, according to Lebanese health ministry sources, while several Western countries allied to Israel, including the United States, have called for an immediate 21-day ceasefire in the region to prevent the conflict from spreading across the Middle East.
Israel says there will be ‘no ceasefire’
The request, however, was flatly rejected by the Israeli government on Thursday, with foreign minister Israel Katz saying ‘there will be no ceasefire in the north’, referring to the Lebanon front. ‘We will continue the fight against the Hezbollah terrorist organisation with all our might until victory and the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes,’ Katz said. Israel’s finance minister, the far-right and Netanyahu‘s ally in the government Bezalel Smotrich, also rejected a truce in Lebanon until Hezbollah is ‘crushed’.
These statements seem to put end to any hope of peace in the region, as expressed by Najib Mikati, prime minister of Lebanon, where more than half a million civilians have been forced to flee the south of the country due to Israeli bombardment. In addition to Turkey, several Western countries are already considering plans to evacuate their citizens by air or even by sea – via Cyprus – or have asked them to leave the country urgently while airports are still operational.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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