Canada on Saturday urged its citizens in Lebanon to leave while they still can, as neighbouring Israel continues to fight militants in the country and

"If the armed conflict intensifies, it could impact your ability to depart [Lebanon]," 

"You should consider leaving by commercial means now, if you can do so safely."

Fighting has broken out along the Israel-Lebanon border since shortly after Oct. 7&nbsp;when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel. Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Lebanese political party and armed movement that&nbsp;supports&nbsp;Hamas, traded strikes with Israel.&nbsp;

Israel&nbsp;responded by bombarding the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Hamas and has been blockaded by Israel since 2005, and by striking targets in Lebanon.

The Canadian government has designated both Hamas and Hezbollah as&nbsp;terrorist groups.

Israel and its allies fear Hezbollah will fully enter the conflict and attack from the north.

&nbsp;are living in Lebanon at any given time, according to government data.

Defence Minister Bill Blair said last week that Ottawa is preparing mass evacuation flights out of Lebanon should the situation worsen.&nbsp;

Fearing all-out war, thousands flee southern Lebanon

Across Lebanon, people are bracing for a war the troubled country cannot afford, and thousands from the south are fleeing north to escape the fighting. 

Lebanese families near Israeli border displaced amid conflict

Zamzam, 33, who said she escaped from the south Lebanese village of Beit Lif near the Israeli border sits  at a school where she  takes refuge in Tyre, Lebanon October 20, 2023.

ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/LEBANON-DISPLACED

Three people sit and stand amid some chairs and a mattress in a classroom that has been repurposed as a refugee shelter.

Zahira Omar Swaid, 40, who said she escaped from the south Lebanese village of Dahaira near the Israeli border after fighting broke out, sits with her family at a school where refugees have taken shelter in Tyre. The International Organization for Migration said almost 20,000 people have fled southern Lebanon since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,400 people and taking more than 200 hostages. 

Thousands of Canadians may soon need to leave Lebanon. 2006 war suggests that's no easy task

The federal government is warning Canadians to avoid all travel to Lebanon and telling those already in the country to leave now, as the crisis in Israel and Gaza worsens and concerns grow that the conflict could spill over the border.

Men protesting throw objects and wave flags in front of barbed wire and large vehicles spraying water. 

Riot police spray protesters with a water cannon during a demonstration in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza, near the U.S. embassy in Aukar, a northern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023. 

Lebanon Israel Palestinians

Riot police near the U.S. embassy in Beirut spray protesters with a water cannon during a pro-Palestinian demonstration on Wednesday. There are fears that Israel's conflict with Hamas could spill across the border to Lebanon.

Canada conducted such an evacuation effort in 2006,&nbsp;when federal government extricated roughly 15,000 people&nbsp;— most of them dual nationals&nbsp;— out of Lebanon due to fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

The foreign affairs minister at the time, Peter MacKay, later&nbsp;

&nbsp;that it was "by far the largest" evacuation effort attempted in Canadian history.

An Israeli army soldier sits by a machine gun at a position in the upper Galilee region of northern Israel near the border with Lebanon on Saturday.

Canada urges its citizens in Lebanon to leave while they still can as Israel-Hamas war escalates

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