As Israel and Hezbollah inch toward war, Canada braces for a repeat of the 2006 evacuation
CBC
Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly had a stark warning Tuesday for Canadian citizens in Lebanon.
"If the armed conflict intensifies, it could impact your ability to leave the country and our ability to provide you with consular services," she said. "Canada is not currently offering assisted departures or evacuations for Canadians in Lebanon, and these are not guaranteed.
"My message to Canadians has been clear since the beginning of the crisis in the Middle East: it is not the time to travel to Lebanon. And for Canadians currently in Lebanon, it is time to leave, while commercial flights remain available."
Canadian officials are acutely aware of the fact that a large-scale Israeli air attack on Lebanon could force Canada to evacuate thousands of citizens under fire, as it did during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war.
Canada spent $94 million and leased seven ships to evacuate Canadians from Lebanon to Cyprus and Turkey in 2006.
Three naval ships participated in the operation. Even the prime minister's jet was roped into service.
The evacuation led to complaints in Canada about "citizens of convenience" after reports emerged that many evacuees returned to live in Lebanon as soon as it was safe to do so.
Canada ultimately evacuated about 15,000 people. Today, a similar number of Canadian citizens have registered with the embassy in Lebanon. Joly has said that is likely just a "fraction" of the true number of Canadians in the Middle Eastern country.
Canada doesn't have many resources in the area right now. The frigate HMCS Charlottetown entered the Mediterranean Tuesday morning, steaming through the Strait of Gibraltar on its way to join NATO's Maritime Group 2.
The utility of Cyprus as a base of operations has also been cast into some doubt after Hezbollah warned the island's government that it could be a target if it assists Israel in an attack on Lebanon.
Cyprus is within range of the Zelzal-2 ballistic missiles Hezbollah acquired from Iran, and the M-600 missiles it got from Syria.
"What worries me most is the possibility of a war as a result of miscalculation rather than planning or by design," former Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas told CBC News. "Someone misinterprets the other side's intention."
For months, Israel and Hezbollah have been trading artillery and missile fire across the border, and Israel has also engaged in air and drone strikes as far north as Beirut.
Homes, fields and forests have burned in the farming communities that dot the hilly landscape. Close to 500 people have died, mostly in Lebanon.
The U.S. attack on Venezuela has shifted the ground for guerrilla groups operating across the country's borderlands with Colombia, raising fears of possible betrayal by Venezuelan regime officials, while opening the door to a wider conflict should U.S. boots ever hit the ground, local security experts say.
Protests sweeping across Iran neared the two-week mark on Saturday, with the country’s government acknowledging the ongoing demonstrations despite an intensifying crackdown and as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world.
Russia didn’t just use a hypersonic missile to target a site in western Ukraine near the border with Poland, in the European Union, but high ranking officials then went on to boast about the power of the nuclear-capable weapon, in what some saw as a clear warning to the West.
The official White House narrative of how a U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) officer shot and killed a U.S. citizen in her vehicle in Minneapolis is bumping hard up against what can be seen in videos of the incident.
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot and killed a Minneapolis motorist on Wednesday during the Trump administration's latest immigration crackdown on a major American city — a shooting that federal officials claimed was an act of self-defence but that the city's mayor described as "reckless" and unnecessary.
When Marco Rubio took the lectern at Mar-a-Lago shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the country had captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, it was the culmination of a decade of effort from the secretary of state and a clear sign that he had emerged as a leading voice within the Trump administration.
The catchphrase going into Tuesday's coalition of the willing meeting on Ukraine in Paris appears to be: expect the unexpected.
Deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro pleaded not guilty on terrorism and drug-trafficking charges during his first appearance in a New York court on Monday.
The leaders of Denmark and Greenland on Sunday urged U.S. President Donald Trump to stop threatening to take over Greenland, after he reiterated his wish to do so in an interview with The Atlantic magazine.
Venezuela's toppled leader, Nicolás Maduro, was in a New York detention centre on Sunday awaiting drug charges after U.S. President Donald Trump ordered an audacious raid to capture him, saying the United States would take control of the oil-producing nation.
The United States hit Venezuela with a “large-scale strike” early Saturday and said its president, Nicolás Maduro, along with his wife, had been captured and flown out of the country after months of stepped-up pressure by Washington — an extraordinary nighttime operation announced by President Donald Trump on social media hours after the attack.
The United Arab Emirates said early Saturday it had withdrawn all its troops from Yemen after escalating tensions in the war-torn country that pitted the UAE against fellow Gulf powerhouse Saudi Arabia.
Investigators on Friday set about the painful task of identifying the burned bodies of a blaze that engulfed a crowded bar and killed around 40 people at a New Year's Eve party in the upscale Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana.