Canadians urged to leave Lebanon as flights cancelled amid growing tensions

MONTREAL — Lara Salameh was supposed to be flying out of Beirut Thursday en route to Montreal with her husband and two daughters, but the night before, their flight was cancelled. She said Air France told her service out of the Lebanese capital was suspended because of the unstable security situation — one that Ottawa has been warning Canadians about as fears of war between Israel and Hezbollah grow.

Salameh is one of the 21,399 Canadians registered as being in Lebanon, a country the Canadian government is urging its citizens to leave. It says they can’t rely on government evacuation flights if war engulfs Lebanon.

Canada has been planning since October for a possible evacuation of its citizens and sent military personnel to Lebanon and Cyprus in preparation.

Salameh hopes that her rescheduled flight on Aug. 10 will take off as planned, but she has no regrets. Travelling to her native country is more than a vacation, she said in an interview Thursday from Beirut. It is a chance for her children to spend time with their elderly grandparents, some of whom are ill.

“We expected that we might get stuck here, but we came anyways for family,” the Laval-Que. resident said, adding that the turmoil in the Middle East did make her hesitate before booking the trip this year.

“You can’t leave your parents. They’re getting old and we need to see them.”

The fear that her young daughters might witness violence does cause some concern, she said, but so far she has not personally seen any sign of conflict. If the situation does sour, she said, she can take refuge with family who live in the northern part of the country.

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly has urged Canadians in the country to fly back to Canada immediately.

“If you are in Lebanon, come back home. If tensions escalate, the situation on the ground may not allow us to help you, and you won’t be able to leave,” Joly posted on X on Wednesday. The Canadian government noted that some airlines have already suspended service to Beirut. “Additional travel disruptions are likely, including airspace closures and flight cancellations and diversions,” it said on X.

Hezbollah’s leader warned Thursday that the conflict with Israel has entered a “new phase,” as he addressed mourners at the funeral of a commander from the group who was killed by an Israeli airstrike this week in Beirut. Israel alleges the commander was behind a weekend rocket attack that killed 12 young people in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, but Hezbollah has denied the charge.

Not all Canadians in Lebanon are scrambling to get back, however.

Stephani Moukhaiber was born in Lebanon and returned there from Montreal last year after being laid off from her job. She said Thursday she has no intention of fleeing Lebanon, even as tensions rise.

Moukhaiber is a Canadian citizen, and she has been receiving regular messages from the Canadian government warning her to leave while flights are still available. “I’m not going to lie. I did have a moment of insecurity where I was like, ‘Yeah, maybe I should go back,'” she said in a phone interview.

But she said the atmosphere where she lives in the mountains outside Beirut is calm, in part because locals have lived through many conflicts in recent decades, including a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.

And Moukhaiber, who traces some of her roots to the Palestinian territories, cannot forgive Canada for its stance in the Israel-Hamas war. She said she does not want to return to Canada because she feels the country is not doing enough to stop Gazans from being killed.

“I’d rather be here in a state of war than be in a country that doesn’t believe in my existence or (my) right to exist,” she said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 2, 2024.

— With files from The Associated Press

Joe Bongiorno, The Canadian Press