Can the UK successfully evacuate British nationals from Lebanon?

The government has stepped up plans for a 'Dunkirk-style' evacuation of British nationals from the country

Photo composite illustration of an RAF transport aircraft, Beirut, airport queues, artillery smoke and Foreign Office guidance
The Foreign Office has urged the 16,000 British nationals in Lebanon to leave
(Image credit: Illustration by Stephen Kelly / Getty Images)

More than a thousand British troops are on standby for a mass evacuation of British nationals from Lebanon as tensions rise in the Middle East, in an operation which could be "on a similar scale" as the operation during the Taliban's takeover of Kabul.

"Hundreds of military personnel from all three services, including Royal Marine commandos, have already been deployed to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus," reported The Times. The paper added that "hundreds more" troops in the UK are "being held at readiness to move out to the region".

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 Sorcha Bradley is a writer at The Week and a regular on “The Week Unwrapped” podcast. She worked at The Week magazine for a year and a half before taking up her current role with the digital team, where she mostly covers UK current affairs and politics. Before joining The Week, Sorcha worked at slow-news start-up Tortoise Media. She has also written for Sky News, The Sunday Times, the London Evening Standard and Grazia magazine, among other publications. She has a master’s in newspaper journalism from City, University of London, where she specialised in political journalism.