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Canada Urges Citizens to Leave Lebanon While Flights Are Available

Smoke billows after Israeli shelling on the southern Lebanese border village of Dhaira on October 16, 2023. (AFP)
Smoke billows after Israeli shelling on the southern Lebanese border village of Dhaira on October 16, 2023. (AFP)
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Canada Urges Citizens to Leave Lebanon While Flights Are Available

Smoke billows after Israeli shelling on the southern Lebanese border village of Dhaira on October 16, 2023. (AFP)
Smoke billows after Israeli shelling on the southern Lebanese border village of Dhaira on October 16, 2023. (AFP)

Canadians should consider leaving Lebanon while they can because of heightened security risks in the region, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said on Monday, after Ottawa helped evacuate a group of Canadians from the West Bank into Jordan.

"As the crisis in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel continues to unfold, the security situation in the region is becoming increasingly volatile," Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said on X, the platform formerly called Twitter.

"Canadians in Lebanon should consider leaving while commercial flights remain available," Joly said.

Like other countries, Canada is trying to evacuate citizens, permanent residents and their families from the region after Hamas' deadly attack on Israel this month and the subsequent Israeli military retaliation.

Canada has been using two military planes to airlift people who needed help leaving Israel, and earlier on Monday, Joly said the first group of Canadians had safely crossed from the West Bank into Jordan.

There are also about 300 people in Gaza that Canada is seeking to bring out through the Rafah border crossing into Egypt.

Five Canadians have been killed in the Hamas attack on Israel, an official from the foreign ministry said on Sunday, while three are still missing.

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Italy’s Foreign Minister Heads to Syria to Encourage Post-Assad Transition

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani speaks to the media a he arrives for a meeting at Rome’s Villa Madama, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025 on the situation in Syria after the collapse of the Assad regime. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini (Andrew Medichini/AP POOL)
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani speaks to the media a he arrives for a meeting at Rome’s Villa Madama, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025 on the situation in Syria after the collapse of the Assad regime. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini (Andrew Medichini/AP POOL)
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Italy’s Foreign Minister Heads to Syria to Encourage Post-Assad Transition

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani speaks to the media a he arrives for a meeting at Rome’s Villa Madama, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025 on the situation in Syria after the collapse of the Assad regime. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini (Andrew Medichini/AP POOL)
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani speaks to the media a he arrives for a meeting at Rome’s Villa Madama, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025 on the situation in Syria after the collapse of the Assad regime. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini (Andrew Medichini/AP POOL)

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said he would travel to Syria on Friday to encourage the country's transition following the ouster of President Bashar Assad by insurgents, and appealed on Europe to review its sanctions on Damascus now that the political situation has changed.
Tajani presided over a meeting in Rome on Thursday of foreign ministry officials from five countries, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the United States.
The aim, he said, is to coordinate the various post-Assad initiatives, with Italy prepared to make proposals on private investments in health care for the Syrian population.
Going into the meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and their European counterparts, Tajani said it was critical that all Syrians be recognized with equal rights. It was a reference to concerns about the rights of Christians and other minorities under Syria’s new de facto authorities of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HT.
“The first messages from Damascus have been positive. That’s why I’m going there tomorrow, to encourage this new phase that will help stabilize the international situation,” Tajani said.
Speaking to reporters, he said the European Union should discuss possible changes to its sanctions on Syria. “It’s an issue that should be discussed because Assad isn’t there anymore, it’s a new situation, and I think that the encouraging signals that are arriving should be further encouraged,” he said.
Syria has been under deeply isolating sanctions by the US, the European Union and others for years as a result of Assad’s brutal response to what began as peaceful anti-government protests in 2011 and spiraled into civil war.
HTS led a lightning insurgency that ousted Assad on Dec. 8 and ended his family’s decades-long rule. From 2011 until Assad’s downfall, Syria’s uprising and civil war killed an estimated 500,000 people.
The US has gradually lifted some penalties since Assad departed Syria for protection in Russia. The Biden administration in December decided to drop a $10 million bounty it had offered for the capture of a Syrian opposition leader whose forces led the ouster of Assad last month.
Syria’s new leaders also have been urged to respect the rights of minorities and women. Many Syrian Christians, who made up 10% of the population before Syria’s civil war, either fled the country or supported Assad out of fear of insurgents.