{"id":109590,"date":"2024-08-07T10:13:06","date_gmt":"2024-08-07T10:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/07\/britons-in-lebanon-could-be-evacuated-by-more-than-1000-uk-troops-on-standby-as-fears-of-hezbollah-israel-war-grow\/"},"modified":"2024-08-07T10:13:06","modified_gmt":"2024-08-07T10:13:06","slug":"britons-in-lebanon-could-be-evacuated-by-more-than-1000-uk-troops-on-standby-as-fears-of-hezbollah-israel-war-grow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/07\/britons-in-lebanon-could-be-evacuated-by-more-than-1000-uk-troops-on-standby-as-fears-of-hezbollah-israel-war-grow\/","title":{"rendered":"Britons in Lebanon could be evacuated by more than 1,000 UK troops on standby – as fears of Hezbollah-Israel war grow"},"content":{"rendered":"
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More than 1,000 British military personnel are on standby to help evacuate UK nationals from Lebanon as fears grow that Israel’s war in Gaza will escalate into a wider regional conflict, Sky News understands.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of soldiers, Royal Marine commandos, sailors and aviators have already been moved forward to bolster a key Royal Air Force (RAF) base in Cyprus, which would act as a hub in any evacuation mission.<\/p>\n

Hundreds more servicemen and women are on alert in the UK to deploy to the region at short notice.<\/p>\n

Expectations within Whitehall are mounting that Iran <\/a><\/strong>and Hezbollah<\/a><\/strong>, an Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon<\/a><\/strong>, will imminently launch retaliatory strikes against Israel, which could prompt the Israeli government to order a wider assault on its neighbour Lebanon.<\/p>\n

The two nations last went to war in 2006 – a crisis that triggered a previous mass UK evacuation mission by sea.<\/p>\n

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Calls grow for foreigners to leave Lebanon<\/span>
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This time around, Whitehall officials have drawn up a range of contingency plans, including the use of two warships – HMS Duncan, a Type 45 destroyer, and RFA Cardigan Bay, a large support ship.<\/p>\n

Both vessels are already in the region and could be sent to the Lebanese coast to help rescue thousands of UK nationals who are living in the country.<\/p>\n

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\n Royal Navy destroyer HMS Duncan in Istanbul in 2018. Pic: Reuters
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Another option could be the deployment of RAF transport aircraft from RAF Akrotiri, in Cyprus, into Beirut – an operation that could be on a similar scale to the evacuation of British passport holders and eligible Afghans from the Afghan capital of Kabul after a Taliban takeover in 2021<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Alert to the crisis, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has for days been urging British nationals to leave Lebanon while commercial routes exist.<\/p>\n

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\n People at Beirut-Rafic Al Hariri International Airport, in Beirut, Lebanon. Pic: Reuters
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A number of airlines have already been cancelling flights, however.<\/p>\n

The situation has been precarious ever since Hezbollah militants and the Israel Defence Forces became locked in cross-border clashes after the 7 October attacks by Hamas<\/a><\/strong>, another Iran-backed militant group, prompted Israel to go to war in Gaza.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Read more:
Britons urged to leave Lebanon as Middle East tensions soar<\/a><\/strong>
Israel strikes Hezbollah targets ‘deep inside’ Lebanon<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Tensions ramped up in late July when Israel accused Hezbollah of a rocket attack that hit a football pitch<\/a><\/strong>, killing 12 Israeli children and young people.<\/p>\n

That strike prompted the Israeli military to take out a senior Hezbollah commander<\/a> <\/strong>in Lebanon last week.<\/p>\n

Within hours, the top political leader of Hamas was also assassinated<\/a><\/strong> while on a visit to Tehran – an attack that Iran and Hamas have blamed on Israel.<\/p>\n

The Israeli authorities have neither confirmed nor denied the allegation publicly.<\/p>\n

Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah have vowed revenge. Huge diplomatic efforts, led by the United States, have been under way, trying to prevent the explosion of a full-scale Middle East war.<\/p>\n

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In April a wider crisis was averted when Iran for the first time launched a huge barrage of missiles and drones at Israel<\/strong><\/a> in response to an alleged Israeli attack on an Iranian consular building in Syria that killed a number of senior Iranian commanders.<\/p>\n

Israel’s air defences, bolstered by the US, the UK and other allies, managed to destroy the vast majority of the projectiles fired by Iran.<\/p>\n

Preparations are under way to defend Israel’s skies again but a two-pronged attack from Iran and Hezbollah could prove overwhelming.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than 1,000 British military personnel are on standby to help evacuate UK nationals from Lebanon as fears grow that Israel’s war in Gaza will escalate into a wider regional conflict, Sky News understands. Hundreds of soldiers, Royal Marine commandos, sailors and aviators have already been moved forward to bolster a key Royal Air Force […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/24\/08\/768x432\/skynews-iron-dome-israel-lebanon_6646842.jpg?20240803233454","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[22186,18903,2622,7743,90451,16221,36424,931,3102],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109590"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109592,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109590\/revisions\/109592"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}