The security of Japan citizens in Lebanon is threatened by rising tensions in the Middle East and escalating conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Allah. Against this background, Japan has taken action to prepare for the evacuation of Japanese nationals in Lebanon.
On Thursday, two Air Self-Defense Force C-2 transport planes took off from Miho Air Base in Tottori Prefecture in western Japan and headed for Jordan and Greece to stand by. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, about 50 Japanese nationals are currently in Lebanon.
As early as September 27, then-Defense Minister Minoru Kihara ordered the Air Self-Defense Force to send planes, and the Ministry of Defense immediately formed a 500-member Joint Task Force. The unit has been actively requesting permission from other countries to fly over its airspace and is fully preparing for the evacuation operation.
Should an evacuation be required, the new Defense Minister Mototo Nakatani will issue an order that Japan nationals will be transported to nearby countries on C-2 aircraft. Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said at a press conference on Thursday: "We have not received any information about Japan's casualties. ”
The deterioration of the situation in the Middle East began with a series of recent conflicts. Lebanon Allah members were hit by pager and walkie-talkie bombings, followed by Israel airstrikes on the group's headquarters in Beirut, the Lebanon capital, and even reported the death of its leader, Hassan · Nasrallah.
In response to Israel, Iran fired ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday. And the Israel army announced on Tuesday that it had begun a "limited, localized" ground operation against Lebanon's Allah Party, the first ground incursion into Lebanon by Israel since 2006.
Japan has been highly dependent on crude oil exports from the Middle East and has traditionally pursued a strategy of "balanced diplomacy" between Arab countries and Israel, which is also supported by its security ally, United States.
In fact, to date, Japan has airlifted its nationals overseas eight times. Among them, Japan has twice evacuated Israel since the surprise attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas a year ago.
Within Japan, Miyazaki Airport in the southwest resumed operations on Thursday morning. The day before, a wartime dud explosion occurred on the airport's taxiway, causing more than 80 flights to be canceled.
At around 7:40 a.m. on Wednesday, a Japan Airlines passenger plane bound for Fukuoka took off, the airport's first flight since it closed on Wednesday. The plane found a hole in the taxiway with a diameter of 7 meters and a depth of 1 meter.
After the accident, the airport was temporarily closed due to investigating the cause of the accident and repairing the taxiway, and asphalt fragments were scattered within a radius of about 200 meters, including the runway. The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force said the explosive was a 250-kilogram bomb from World War II, and the cause of the explosion is currently under investigation.
Japan said Wednesday that the bomb was made by United States. It is worth mentioning that the airfield, which was once the air base of the Imperial Japan Navy, is often found with unexploded United States bombs from World War II, and unexploded shells were also found in 2011 and 2021, respectively.