ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Iraq will resume flights to Lebanon on Monday for Lebanese citizens who had sought refuge in the country during the conflict with Israel, the transport ministry announced, adding that regular flights will resume starting from the New Year.

Razzaq Muhaybis al-Saadawi, Iraq’s transport minister, said that Iraqi airways has completed all the technical and logistical preparations to start the evacuation flights on Monday to facilitate the voluntary return of Lebanese citizens back home.

Regular flights between Beirut and Baghdad will resume starting Wednesday, January 1, he added.

"This procedure will contribute to facilitating air traffic between Iraq and Lebanon, to enhance trade and tourism exchange between the two brotherly countries,” read the statement from the ministry.

There will be seven weekly scheduled flights between the two countries at first, according to the statement, adding that the number of flights will increase according to the volume of demand and the “evaluation of the circumstances.”

Iraq and many other countries suspended flights to Lebanon in September amid heightening tensions between Israel and Hezbollah. Iraq received thousands of displaced Lebanese during the conflict.

After two months of a fully-fledged war between Israel and Hezbollah, a ceasefire deal brokered by the United States and France brought the deadly conflict to a halt in late November. More than 3,000 people were killed in over a year of fighting in Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel.

Iraq resumed flights to Lebanon for a short period in early December, but suspended them again on December 8 in the wake of the escalations in Syria and the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.