In Lebanon, some rush to leave as possible Israel retaliation against Hezbollah looms

Open this photo in gallery:

Mohamad Chehab looks out from a shawarma restaurant to the apartment building where his father owns a sixth-floor home in south Beirut. In 2006, that building was among the first to be destroyed when Israel went to war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants, whose headquarters was located nearby.

Thirteen years later, Israel is once again on a war footing and Mr. Chehab, an Ontario engineer and homebuilder, isn’t staying to see what happens to the apartment, which has been rebuilt.

His wife and mother have been calling daily, telling him “please, please, we don’t want to lose you there,” he said. With five children in Canada, “I can’t take the risk.”

So Mr. Chehab has booked a flight out of Lebanon on Sunday morning, cutting short a visit to a home he worries may not be safe.

“If something happens, I’m going to take this last look at it, because I don’t think I’m going to see it any more,” he said.

Israel, after all, has threatened to return Lebanon “to the stone age” if war once again breaks out with Hezbollah, and the signs from the border between the two countries have grown ominous. On Saturday, Hezbollah said it attacked Israeli military positions with mortars and guided missiles. Israeli shelling killed an elderly man and his wife, Lebanese media reported.

Their deaths came a day after a Reuters journalist was killed in south Lebanon and six other journalists injured. Observers say the attacks to date seem calibrated to avoid provoking a ruinous conflagration between Israel’s technologically advanced forces and Hezbollah, which is armed with a vast cache of missiles.

Open this photo in gallery:

But not since the 34-day war in 2006 has the border between the two countries seen such bloody conflict.

It has been a week since Hamas, the Iran-backed group that rules the Gaza Strip, launched a co-ordinated assault on Israel, the first salvo in a war that has now killed at least 3,200.

Tehran is also the chief sponsor of Hezbollah, and has threatened to open a second front against Israel from the north. On Saturday, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian visited Lebanon for the second time in as many days, where he said a response by resistance fighters to Israel “will be decisive and regret-inducing, and will change the current map of the occupied territories.”

“They have designed the scenarios and their hands are on the trigger,” he said, in remarks reported by Iranian state media.

Bloodshed has become such a regular fact of life in Lebanon that some have found it easy to dismiss any new threats. On Saturday, picnickers lounged on Beirut’s waterfront while pleasure boats circled the city’s famed Pigeon Rock. At the airport, arriving planes continued to deliver visitors.

But some of the seats on departing aircraft were occupied by people unwilling to stay in a country they worry may soon be at war.

“You are actually standing in a place that could be targeted at any moment,” said Saad, an American citizen who brought his wife and two children to the airport Saturday.

They were leaving for Cairo, likely for weeks, until it becomes possible “to read the situation with more clarity,” Saad said. “Right now, there is no clarity in where things are going to go.” The Globe and Mail is not identifying him by his full name because he is concerned about his safety.

Others have been quicker to judgment. “Lebanon is a catastrophe,” a group of four German-born Lebanese brothers yelled as they ran to catch a flight Saturday.

“We’re scared,” said Joey Akl, a Grade-12 student who was leaving with his mother and younger sister. The trio were bound for Kuwait, “because of the situation right now with potential war,” he said.

The family had only recently moved to Lebanon. But Joey’s mother, Carla, knows what war in Lebanon looks like and does not want her own children to experience it.

Open this photo in gallery:

The Canadian government on Thursday urged people to avoid non-essential travel to Lebanon, citing “the increased risk of terrorist attack and the armed conflict with Israel.”

In an interview Saturday, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly called the situation in the country “particularly volatile.”

Ottawa says 14,000 Canadians are registered in Lebanon. It suggests avoiding all travel to the country’s south and to parts of southern Beirut, including the Haret Hreik neighbourhood where Mr. Chehab’s father has his apartment.

His father no longer lives here. After the 2006 war, Mr. Chehab helped most of his immediate family immigrate to Canada. Cousins and uncles still living in the family village 20 kilometres from the Lebanon border were also gone when Mr. Chehab went to visit earlier this week. Most villages near the border now stand empty, he said.

That hasn’t stopped him from worrying.

If war breaks out again between Israel and Hezbollah, it could be “way worse” than what took place 13 years ago, he said.

“You can see what’s happening in Gaza,” he said. “If things spread, there will be lot of people that are going to die.”