LONDON: Britain’s Foreign Office said on Monday that it was temporarily withdrawing some British embassy staff from Lebanon.
It had previously advised Britons against travelling to Lebanon due to the ongoing conflict between neighbouring Israel and Gaza and encouraged any Britons still in the country to depart while commercial flights remained.
The Israeli-Lebanese border area has seen multiple exchanges of fire and an uptick in violence, in particular between Hezbollah and Israel, since Israel launched a relentless war on Gaza after an attack by Hamas on October 7.
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On Sunday, four relatives of a journalist were killed in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon, the official Lebanese news agency reported, adding that the journalist was also wounded.
The National News Agency (NNA) said the four victims included the sister of radio correspondent Samir Ayoub and her three grandchildren, aged 10, 12 and 14.
They were following the journalist’s car in another vehicle when the attack occurred.
Hezbollah said it fired multiple grad rockets at the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona on Sunday in retaliation for an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon that it said had killed a woman and three children.
In a statement, Hezbollah said its attack came in response to Israel’s “heinous and brutal crime.”
