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There are hundreds of seats still available on charter flights for Canadians leaving Lebanon this weekend, according to Global Affairs Canada.
Between Oct. 4 and Oct. 6, there will be nearly 900 seats available, the department said in a news release.
There are 24,909 Canadians who have marked Lebanon as their location in the Registration of Canadian Abroad system. The department clarified that this does not mean that is the exact number of Canadians in the country. (The number only reflects those who decided to register voluntarily.)
Two flights left from Beirut, Lebanon to Istanbul, Turkey carrying a total of 275 passengers on Thursday. As well as Canadians, passengers on those flights were from Australia, New Zealand, Denmark and the United States, according to the Global Affairs news release.
Speaking to the press in France, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly urged Canadians still in Lebanon to get on a flight.
“Please take the seats. At this point, not all seats are taken by Canadians,” she said, CBC News reported.
Earlier this week, the department said more than 300 Canadians have taken flights out of Lebanon.
After an Iranian missile attack was launched at Israel and a fatal shooting by Hamas left seven dead in Tel Aviv-Jaffa on Tuesday, the Israeli military said it has killed 250 Hezbollah terrorists in the past four days.
The Israel Defense Forces has also eliminated more than 2,000 military targets, it said in a post on X Friday. Among the terrorists killed, the IDF listed five battalion commanders, 10 company commanders and six platoon commanders.
“The Israeli Air Force is also conducting preemptive strikes during these intelligence-based operations in southern Lebanon,” the IDF said in the post.
As part of its operations in Lebanon, IDF soldiers have discovered rocket launcher munitions, anti-tank missiles and rockets inside a residential home, according to the Israeli military.
Additionally, dozens of weapons — aimed at Israeli territory — were left behind in buildings and civilian homes, including anti-tank missiles, firearms, observation posts and an explosive device buried by the enemy in the area,” the IDF said in a post on X Friday.
Sirens went off in southern Israel for the first time in two months, according to a post on X by the Israel Defense Forces on Friday morning.
“Almost a year after October 7, Hamas is still threatening our civilians with their terrorism and we will continue operating against them,” the post said.
As Israel faced an attack from Hamas within the country, its military continued operations in Lebanon. On Friday, the military released the identity of one of the terrorists killed as the commander of Hezbollah’s communications unit Mohammad Rashid Sakafi. He was killed Thursday “during a precise, intelligence-based strike in Beirut.”
“Sakafi was a senior Hezbollah terrorist, who was responsible for the communications unit since 2000. Sakafi invested significant efforts to develop communication capabilities between all of Hezbollah’s units,” said the post on X.
On Thursday afternoon, the IDF identified another terrorist killed as Mahmoud Yusef Anisi. Anisi was “a senior terrorist involved in Hezbollah’s precision-guided missile manufacturing chain in Lebanon,” said the IDF.
“Anisi joined Hezbollah over 15 years ago and was one of the leaders of the Hezbollah PGM campaign in Lebanon. He was a significant source of knowledge with many technological abilities in the field of weapons manufacturing,” according to the IDF’s post on X.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to take part in an armchair discussion on artificial intelligence in France today as the Francophonie summit kicks off.
Trudeau is scheduled to talk about AI in the morning, while leaders will hold a session on challenges for French-speaking citizens in the digital age in the afternoon.
As the host of this year’s meeting between French-speaking countries, French President Emmanuel Macron will be welcoming leaders to Villers-Cotterets and later hosting an official dinner.
The ongoing and widening war in the Middle East, which is affecting Lebanon, a member state of the Organisation de la Francophonie, is also expected to be a topic of discussion for leaders.
The Israeli military on Thursday warned people to evacuate a city and other communities in southern Lebanon that are north of a UN-declared buffer zone, signalling that it may widen a ground operation launched earlier this week against Hezbollah.
Joly says she will have a conversation with Lebanon’s information minister during the summit and will be meeting with her French counterpart today to discuss how to bring peace and stability to the Middle East.
With additional reporting by the Canadian Press
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