ANKARA — Turkey will start to evacuate its nationals from Lebanon on Wednesday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said, as Israel increases the number of its troops in the country.
Turkish nationals who have applied for assistance in leaving the country are being taken from Turkey’s Mediterranean port city of Mersin to Beirut Tuesday in two Turkish navy ships with a total capacity of 2,000 passengers, the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
So far, roughly 2,500 Turkish citizens have applied to be evacuated from Lebanon, Turkey’s Demiroren News Agency reported, citing ministry sources. The two ships will be sufficient to bring home all the remaining nationals who seek to leave Lebanon, the report said.
New evacuations will be organized should the need arise, according to the ministry’s statement, which added that the ships will also deliver aid to Lebanon in return trips.
A number of other countries including China, the United Kingdom and the United States have also evacuated their nationals from Lebanon since the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the ensuing Israeli invasion. Two State Department-organized flights took approximately 180 passengers from Beirut to Istanbul on Tuesday, according to a spokesperson.
The evacuation efforts came as the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel escalated. The Israeli military announced it was deploying another division to Lebanon as the militant group launched its largest rocket barrage yet at the Israeli city of Haifa on Wednesday.
Later on Wednesday, however, Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem announced the militant group was supporting cease-fire efforts led by a prominent Shiite politician and Lebanon’s parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, who is also the leader of the Hezbollah-allied Amal Party. “We support the political efforts that Nabih Berri is undertaking towards a cease-fire,” Qassem was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse in a televised speech.
Qassem did not condition a possible cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah on the fate of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Berri, along with caretaker Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, has been working on a cease-fire between the Jewish state and Hezbollah and met with US Ambassador to Lebanon Lisa Johnson, according to Lebanon’s official news agency NNA.
More than 1,000 people have been killed in Lebanon in the clashes between Hezbollah and Israel since Nasrallah’s killing, according to Lebanese Health Ministry figures.