The Federal Government of Nigeria issued a travel guideline on Wednesday asking its citizens to leave Lebanon or move to safer locations as soon as possible.<\/p>\n
The government, through the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), said it is worried by the Israeli attacks on Lebanon which Israel says is targeted at Hezbollah but has caused hundreds of civilian deaths.<\/p>\n
NIDCOM advised Nigerians resident in Lebanon to consider moving out of the country now that commercial flights are still in operation, the agency\u2019s spokesperson, Abdulrahman Balogun, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Israel has launched a ground operation across its northern border into Lebanon targeting Hezbollah. The face-off between Israel and Hezbollah opened a new phase in almost a year of war in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
The latest escalation comes after Israel killed Hezbollah\u2019s leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike on Friday and decimated the leadership of the group, considered the most powerful paramilitary force in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
The Israeli military said the operation is a \u201climited ground operation\u201d but Lebanese officials said the airstrikes have killed hundreds of people, destroyed homes and displaced about 1 million people in Lebanon.<\/p>\n
NIDCOM said information from the Nigerian community in Lebanon indicated that most Nigerians have relocated from the southern part and are now relatively safe.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hereby advise them to keep safe until the ceasefire is in place,\u201d the agency said. \u201cIt is gratifying to note that thus far, no Nigerian has witnessed any form of accident or injury and wish to advise them to continue to remain safe while the war lasts.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the BBC reported that the Israeli military and Hezbollah were fighting inside southern Lebanon. The Israeli military earlier said it was focused on removing \u201cimmediate threats\u201d from Lebanese villages along the border, including Hezbollah\u2019s ability to infiltrate northern Israel.<\/p>\n
Israeli soldiers, including paratroopers and commandos, as well as armoured corps troops, have been \u201cpreparing for limited, localised, targeted operations in southern Lebanon,\u201d the Israeli military said, adding that soldiers have been training for weeks and had gained skills and operational experience in Gaza over many months.<\/p>\n
While the extent of Israel\u2019s military plans inside Lebanon remains unclear, Israel\u2019s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has become increasingly defiant of international calls for restraint and de-escalation, as well as widespread outrage over growing civilian casualties in Lebanon and Gaza.<\/p>\n
As battles between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops in southern Lebanon intensify, with the Israeli army saying at least eight soldiers have been killed in combat so far, there is also another tension between Iran and Israel. Hezbollah said it had repelled Israeli forces from a Lebanese border town.<\/p>\n
Iran fired several waves of ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday evening in a sudden assault that raised the likelihood of a direct all-out war between the two most powerful militaries in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Israel vowed Iran \u201cwill pay\u201d for its missile attack and an Israeli official told NBC News Wednesday that the country would retaliate swiftly. Tehran urged the US to \u201cstep aside\u201d and warned of \u201ca far more crushing response.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Israeli military said Iran fired about 180 missiles during its assault, a significant barrage that forced millions of Israelis to take cover in bomb shelters for more than an hour, according to media reports.<\/p>\n
Many of the missiles were intercepted by Israel\u2019s air defence system, while some fell in central and southern Israel, according to the Israeli military.<\/p>\n
The Iranian president has threatened further retaliation should Israel strike back, saying if Israel \u201cpersists in its actions, we will respond with greater force.\u201d
\nUS President Joe Biden said he does not support an attack on Iran\u2019s nuclear sites but plans to announce new sanctions on the country.<\/p>\n
-Premium Times<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Federal Government of Nigeria issued a travel guideline on Wednesday asking its citizens to leave Lebanon or move to safer locations as soon as possible. The government, through the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), said it is worried by the Israeli attacks on Lebanon which Israel says is targeted at Hezbollah but has caused […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peoplesforumonline.com.ng\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peoplesforumonline.com.ng\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peoplesforumonline.com.ng\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peoplesforumonline.com.ng\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peoplesforumonline.com.ng\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peoplesforumonline.com.ng\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6401,"href":"https:\/\/peoplesforumonline.com.ng\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6400\/revisions\/6401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peoplesforumonline.com.ng\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peoplesforumonline.com.ng\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peoplesforumonline.com.ng\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peoplesforumonline.com.ng\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}