A French cargo-plane carrying humanitarian aid for Lebanon took off from Paris Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle airport on Thursday morning.

Some 50 emergency doctors and Red Cross staff were aboard the Boeing 747-300, which also carried medicines, surgical equipment, water-purification units, food and field generators in the first dispatch of aid to the Arab nation.

The plane will land at Larnaca, Cyprus, where the aid materials will be taken to Lebanon by boat and put at the disposal of the Lebanese government.

A second plane is due to leave later Thursday.

Violence between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah erupted on July 12 after Hezbollah militia kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others during an across-border attack.

Thousands of foreigners are fleeing Lebanon, most of them by sea and land, while Israel is intensifying its military operation in Lebanon.

French President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday called for the opening of "humanitarian corridors" in Lebanon to evacuate refugees.

Source: Xinhua