Jakarta. Indonesia is considering sending its military units to Lebanon for evacuation missions if hostilities between the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah and Israel escalate.

Indonesia has sent 1,231 military personnel to the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, also known as UNIFIL. Indonesia is also the largest troop-contributing country to the UNIFIL. As tension rises, Indonesia is considering evacuation plans. The Foreign Affairs Ministry revealed Thursday that they had a technical meeting with the Indonesian Armed Forces regarding the Lebanon conflict.

“If things escalate, the armed forces’ troops at UNIFIL are ready to back the evacuation of Indonesian nationals from Lebanon,” Judha Nugraha, the ministry’s citizen protection director, told the Jakarta Globe.

Judha said that Indonesia would also coordinate with UNIFIL’s force commander. 

There are currently 155 Indonesian citizens in Lebanon. Indonesia’s embassy in Beirut issued an alert for citizens in August. Since then, the government has helped evacuate 25 Indonesians from the country.

“The majority of people in Lebanon at the time chose to stay in Lebanon,” Judha said.

The death toll of Israel’s Monday strikes on Lebanon surpassed 490 people, including over 90 women and children, Lebanese authorities reported. Lebanon revealed that this was the deadliest barrage since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

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