Twelve hundred Turkish citizens left stranded in Lebanon due to the ongoing Israel attacks, will be evacuated from Beirut on the ferry Iskenderun. The vessel, accompanied by two Turkish frigates, sailed for Beirut late Sunday, arriving earlier Monday.

The ferry has been staffed with doctors and nurses to provide medical care for the passengers, some of whom have been trapped in Beirut since Israel started its campaign of air attacks against the Lebanese capital in retaliation for the kidnapping of two of its solders by the Islamist group Hizbullah.