'They don't deserve this nightmare': Cancelled flights leave Lebanese stuck at Beirut airport

Long queues and inflated prices for the few tickets available as smoke billows from air strikes nearby

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Outside Beirut airport, smoke can be seen rising from the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, which have been the target of intense Israeli bombardment over the past week. Some people look on in terror, while capturing the aftermath on their phones.

The road leading to the airport is quieter than usual. Soldiers are stationed at the entry gates and inside, most shops and cafes are closed. All airlines except the national carrier, Middle East Airlines, have suspended flights to and from Lebanon because of security concerns.

"The road to the airport was clear, but once I arrived, the situation changed," Antoine Madi told The National on Sunday, while waiting in one of the long lines at the check-in desks for a flight to Frankfurt. "I’ve been in the queue for over an hour now, and I’ll probably be standing here even longer. I had a very hard time securing a flight ticket, and the price has tripled – for some routes, it's even more."

Israel has launched dozens of strikes on Beirut over the past week as hostilities with Hezbollah have escalated after nearly a year of low-level clashes over the war in Gaza. An Israeli air strike hit an apartment block near the Cola Bridge in Lebanon's capital early on Monday and a strike killed the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday.

The strikes have created a surge in people desperate to leave the increasingly dangerous areas. Trapped in an escalating conflict, thousands of residents are struggling to flee the violence, which has killed more than 1,000 people in the past two weeks. The caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Sunday that up to a million people have been displaced.

"I feel like I’m in a film; I still haven’t processed what’s happening. Everything is moving so fast. Israeli air strikes are leaving smoke everywhere – from the balcony of my apartment, from the window at work, and now here at the airport, I can see the smoke clearly," said Ali Mohammed, another passenger. "I just want to get out of here quickly for the sake of my kids. They, and all the children, don’t deserve to live through this nightmare."

Karrar Haidar and his family fled their home in the southern suburbs of Beirut after Israel started bombing the area. "We ran out with just the clothes on our backs and spent the night in a school," he said as he stood in line waiting to board a flight to Istanbul. "Conditions there are really tough – there are no basic supplies, and not enough aid is coming through because of the large number of displaced people."

Most airlines have cancelled flights to Lebanon while many countries have called on their nationals to leave. The UK Foreign Office told British citizens still in Lebanon to “leave now”, while on Saturday the European Commission and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) issued conflict zone information bulletins (CZIBs) recommending that airlines avoid operating within the airspaces of Lebanon and Israel “at all flight levels”.