The U.S. Embassy in Lebanon issued a new alert Monday urging Americans in the country to leave due to the Israel-Hezbollah war.
“U.S. citizens in Lebanon are strongly encouraged to depart now,” the embassy said in its latest security alert.
The embassy has also helped Americans who want to leave try to get on departing flights and arrange others. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Oct. 9 that it had arranged flights for more than 1,100 people since the department began the U.S.-organized flights.
“I’ll just say we believe we have a duty to do everything we can to help American citizens get out of the country. We have been urging American citizens to leave the country for months, and we know that a lot of people wanted to leave, especially over the past couple of weeks,” Miller said. “We had people reach out to us and say that they wanted to leave, and then some of them say that and then don’t ultimately leave, for maybe very good reasons, which is they’re worried about their family members, or they have other considerations. But ultimately, we can’t make people leave, of course.”
Israel and Hezbollah’s hostilities began on Oct. 8, 2023, when Hezbollah began launching rockets and missiles from southern Lebanon into northern Israel. The attacks began one day after Hamas carried out the deadliest terrorist attack in Israel’s history, in which terrorists killed roughly 1,200 people and kidnapped about 250 others.
A Hezbollah drone attack killed four Israeli troops and injured dozens of others overnight from Sunday into Monday.
Israel evacuated more than 50,000 people from northern Israel due to the threats from the rockets and the fear that Hezbollah could carry out a cross-border raid similar to Hamas’s. Israel has found intelligence indicating Hezbollah was planning to try such an attack.
Despite continued diplomatic efforts, Hezbollah has continued its attacks, and Israeli forces escalated their attacks on the U.S.-designated terrorist group in early September. Since then, Israeli forces have killed most of Hezbollah’s senior leadership, including Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, continued their campaign of airstrikes, and carried out ground maneuvers into southern Lebanon.
Israel leaders have said they want to stop Hezbollah’s attacks and push them further north to create a buffer zone between the border and where Hezbollah resides. The Litani River provides a natural divide in southern Lebanon that has been used in previous diplomatic efforts as a line of demarcation.
Israel and Hezbollah went to war in 2006, which ended after a month with the passing of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701. The resolution called for Israeli forces to withdraw from southern Lebanon and for Hezbollah to move north of the river, which it never did.
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The U.N.’s mission in Lebanon, known as the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, has forces in the southern part of the country. Several have been injured during Israeli-Hezbollah fighting.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the U.N. to withdraw those forces, which haven’t been able to stop Hezbollah’s attacks over the last year, and that request was condemned.