The terrorist anti-Israel crusade continues apace as Canadians—including little children—have recently become the victims.
Countries are starting to organize evacuations from Lebanon.
BEIRUT (Reuters) – France, the United States, Britain and a host of other nations scrambled to evacuate their citizens from Lebanon on Sunday as Israeli air strikes pounded the country for a fifth day.
[…] France hired a cruise ship, which should arrive on Monday and can carry 1,000 to 2,000 passengers, to help evacuate its citizens and other Europeans to Cyprus. It also hired another ferry with Norway which can take up to 650 people.
So far most foreigners have been forced to flee overland to take flights from Syria after Israeli forces bombed the Beirut airport and its ships began patrolling Lebanon’s Mediterranean coast.
Sotos Zakhaeos, the director-general of France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said hiring the passenger ships was “a French initiative for the transportation of all European citizens.”
“It will set off, likely late today from Cyprus and start picking people up tomorrow. This is a European initiative, and the security guarantees have been given,” he told Reuters.
A former French colony, Lebanon is home to 17,000 French residents with another 4,000-5,000 French nationals visiting the country.
Italy has moved a warship into waters near Beirut to assist with a second wave of evacuations after an Italian convoy drove 460 people, mostly Italians, to Syria on Saturday.
Britain said a rapid deployment team had arrived in Beirut to assist British nationals and that naval assets were in the regions. It was also sending two Royal Navy ships for a possible evacuation of some of the 3,500 to 4,000 British families and 10,000 dual nationals registered in Lebanon.
EVACUATION SHIPS
Canada was preparing to evacuate some of its citizens, Foreign Minister Peter MacKay said on Sunday after seven Canadians were killed in Lebanon.
Around 16,000 Canadians have registered with their embassy but MacKay said the real figure could be as high as 40,000. Canada has a significant population of Lebanese origin.
MacKay said Canada—working with Britain and France—was securing commercial vessels and positioning them off the coast of Lebanon to prepare for an evacuation.
Germany said it had helped around 200 of the roughly 1,100 Germans to leave over the weekend and more than 130 Swiss were evacuated on Saturday and Sunday by bus to Damascus.
Other European and Arab countries sent military or chartered civilian aircraft to Syria to fly people home.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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