“The number of Lebanese people returning to their country has passed 2,500 people,” Ali Abbas, spokesperson for Iraq’s migration and displaced ministry, told Rudaw.
Abbas said that special flights will be allocated to expedite the return of Lebanese refugees, “especially the wounded and the elderly.”
“The number of Lebanese refugees registered in Iraq is now about 20,000,” he added.
On Tuesday, United States President Joe Biden announced that both Israel and Lebanon had accepted Washington’s proposal for a ceasefire of the war that had intensified over the past month following nearly a year of tit-for-tat cross-border attacks by the Israeli military and Hezbollah.
More than 3,000 people have been killed since the conflict began, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
Baghdad welcomed the Lebanese refugees as “guests of Iraq.” A large majority of them are staying in the holy Shiite cities of Karbala and Najaf, where they are being aided by religious authorities in addition to the Iraqi government.
On Wednesday, the Iraqi government said that it played a “pivotal and essential” role in the US-brokered ceasefire agreement, calling it a major development that helped avert a greater war.
As the ceasefire took place, the Lebanese army began moving south toward the border to take up positions previously occupied by Hezbollah. The Israeli army will withdraw from southern Lebanon over the course of the next two months, according to the deal.
Iraq’s foreign ministry called for greater efforts to prevent a wider war and for “serious and urgent” steps to end the conflict in Gaza.
Palestinian Hamas militants on October 7 of last year launched a large-scale incursion into southern Israel, killing more than 1,170 people, according to Israeli figures. Israel responded with a large-scale military incursion into Gaza, killing over 43,000 people, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
