Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has urged Canadian citizens to leave Lebanon immediately, as evacuations surpass 1,000 amid rising regional tensions.
As security in Lebanon worsens, on Saturday, the Canadian PM asked Canadians who are still there to register for evacuation on special planes that have already assisted over 1,000 people in leaving.
An official in Trudeau's office stated that more flights were being added for Monday and Tuesday and that Canada has 6,000 people lined up to depart, with officials hoping to reach an additional 2,500 over the weekend.
"We've still got seats on airplanes organised by Canada. We encourage all Canadians to take seats on these airplanes and get out of Lebanon while they can," Trudeau said at a summit of leaders from French-speaking countries in France.
According to the official at his office, Canada has granted tickets to people from Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and other European nations because it has been unable to fill aircraft with its own nationals.
Notably, after firing at Lebanon's Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah for almost a year, Israel has increased the scope of its operations in recent weeks.
The fighting, which has been occurring concurrently with Israel's one-year-old war against Hamas in Gaza, has mainly been restricted to the Israel-Lebanon border region.
