(Ottawa) The security situation in Lebanon is beginning to seriously worry the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, so much so that she recommends that the thousands of Canadians who are in the Land of the Cedars leave while there is still time .
A sign that the conflict could spill over into Lebanon, the head of diplomacy on Monday invited Canadians to pack up.
“Canadians in Lebanon should consider leaving the country while commercial flights are still available,” she wrote on X on Monday.
PHOTO ADRIAN WYLD, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
Melanie Joly
The alert level thus goes up a notch, since last week, the federal authorities limited themselves to advising against all non-essential travel to the Land of the Cedar.
According to the latest update from Global Affairs, 14,544 people are registered as Canadians in Lebanon.
Since the start of the war on October 7, clashes on the border with Lebanon have resumed, raising fears of the opening of a new front with the entry of Lebanese Hezbollah into the conflict.
It maintains close ties with Hamas, which controls Gaza, and with Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian faction supported by Iran.
Other Canadian allies are also closely monitoring the possible opening of this front.
The French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna, was in Beirut to call for “the responsibility of all actors” in the conflict.
“To each of my interlocutors, I said that they had the responsibility and the capacity to prevent Lebanon from being dragged into a spiral from which the country would not recover,” she wrote on X.
Israel evacuated residents along its northern border with Lebanon on Monday, after closing the area following exchanges of fire between the pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement and Israel.
Canadians evacuated from the West Bank
If Canada were to embark on a repatriation operation, it would be on a completely different scale than that underway for Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
On Monday, 21 of the approximately 250 people who were in the West Bank arrived in Jordan on a bus.
“I am pleased to announce that the first group of Canadians have now safely crossed from the West Bank into Jordan,” said Ms.me Joly on X.
“Thank you to our teams in Ramallah, Amman, Tel Aviv and Ottawa, who worked night and day to make this happen,” she added.
On the Israeli side, to date, more than 1,000 passengers have left on Canadian flights to Athens.
These flights included hundreds of Canadians as well as Israelis, Americans, Australians, Greeks and Brazilians.
Flights should take place this Monday, October 16, “and as needed,” Global Affairs Canada said on Sunday.
Gaza Strip still under lockdown
The fate of the approximately 300 Canadians stuck in the Gaza Strip remains uncertain.
They were unable to take advantage of the evacuation window of a few hours which opened on Saturday at the Rafah border post, which leads to Egypt.
The Canadian government is trying to negotiate passage for its nationals and their loved ones.
A debate will be held in the House of Commons regarding the situation in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank on Monday.
The leader of the Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, signaled that his party would not seek to score political points on the issue.
On the subject of the repatriation operation, for example, he did not feel the need to scold the liberals.
“Given the reach of the government, the equipment it has, its international weight, its international credibility, I have the impression that they have done quite a bit of everything they could do,” he said. -he says.
Appointment of an envoy to the fight against anti-Semitism
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday the appointment of a new special envoy for preserving the memory of the Holocaust and the fight against anti-Semitism.
He chose Deborah Lyons, who was Canada’s ambassador to Israel from 2016 to 2020, for a mandate which will last two years.
“Today, in the wake of the horrific attacks on Israel, we reaffirm our solidarity with Canada’s Jewish communities,” the Prime Minister said in a statement.
“We must all confront anti-Semitism, hatred and intolerance in all their forms in order to build a better and safer future for all,” he added.
Deborah Lyons replaces Irwin Cotler, who was Canada’s first special envoy for preserving the memory of the Holocaust and combating anti-Semitism, a position he held from 2020 to 2023.
with Agence France-Presse