BEIRUT – Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said on Saturday that there was no need for “concern or panic” about the country’s security situation, after Germany and the Gulf countries issued new travel warnings in response to outbreaks of violence.
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Germany, and the United Kingdom amended their travel advisories in response to fighting between competing armed groups in the Palestinian settlement of Ain el-Hilweh in southern Lebanon.
Mikati stated in a statement that he had met with his security chiefs and determined that the situation “does not call for concern or panic.” He stated that “significant progress” had been made in settling the violence in Ain el-Hilweh, where at least 13 people had been killed in fighting.
According to the statement, foreign minister Abdullah Bou Habib has been charged with assuring Arab countries that their residents in Lebanon are safe.
The Saudi embassy in Lebanon asked its people to leave Lebanon as soon as possible and to avoid places where there have been armed conflicts.
The Saudi statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, emphasized “the critical importance of adhering to the Saudi travel ban to Lebanon.”
Kuwait encouraged its people in Lebanon on Saturday to remain careful and avoid “areas of security disturbances,” but stopped short of ordering them to leave.
Germany cautioned people this week not to travel to Palestinian camps in Lebanon, among other places. Britain warned against “all but essential travel” to southern Lebanon, especially Ain el-Hilweh.
Fighting between the mainstream Fatah movement and hard-line Islamists in the camp on July 29 displaced around a quarter of the camp’s 80,000 people.
According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), Ain el-Hilweh is the largest of 12 Palestinian camps in Lebanon, which may house up to 250,000 Palestinian refugees.
Source: Arab News
