The Princess 2010 yacht is an impressive specimen of a boat. Before the war, its gleaming white hull could be seen cruising Lebanon’s coastline, revellers making sure they enjoyed every inch of the 24-metre-long vessel they each paid $600 to ride. Since Israel started an intense across wide swathes of Lebanon , the Princess has been making a very different type of journey.
The $1.3m craft has been ferrying families from Beirut to Cyprus, bottles of champagne replaced by hastily packed suitcases. “The trips are fully booked, we have done about 30 trips on our two boats since the bombing started [on 23 September],” said Khailil Bechara, a broker who works with ship captains to transport people to Cyprus.
At $1,800 a head, a seat on a boat bound for Cyprus is not cheap. But demand is high as people desperately try to find any route out of Lebanon. Israel’s military campaign has killed nearly 2,000 people and wounded more than 9,000 since fighting between it and Hezbollah started on 8 October last year, with most of those casualties incurred since 23 September.
More than 1 million people have been displaced since then, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said on Thursday. Huge explosions shook the sky in the vicinity of Beirut’s main airport in the early hours of Friday. Although the airport is still open, only Lebanon’s national flag carrier, Middle East Airlines, will fly there.
People have been fighting for the few seats left on departing flights, w.