Foreign Minister Penny Wong has again urged Australians to leave Lebanon, with a final repatriation flight set to depart within hours.

The federal government has assisted thousands of Australians, permanent residents and their immediate families to leave Lebanon as the security situation deteriorates.

Israel has intensified its bombing campaign in southern Lebanon and the capital Beirut as it attacks listed terror group Hezbollah, which has been trading rocket fire across the Israel-Lebanon border for months.

One more government-organised flight will depart on Sunday, amid concerns about a low take-up.

“We have a flight scheduled for Sunday, that’s October 13, there are no further flights scheduled beyond that,” Wong said on Friday.

“Flights are not going to be scheduled indefinitely and are subject to operational and security constraints. You should leave now if you wish to leave.”

The federal government has been dismayed at hundreds of empty seats on flights out of Lebanon, despite thousands of Australians and their family members being registered as wanting to leave.

It has so far assisted 2280 Australian citizens, permanent residents and immediate family members to Lebanon. Another 3018 have registered with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, although many have declined offers to leave on flights this week.

Some of those who have registered to leave have reportedly sought flights on alternative dates, want to leave with family members who are not eligible, or want to attend to family business before leaving.

Others have reportedly moved to northern Lebanon, where they say they feel safer.

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham has suggested Australians leaving Lebanon should be made to pay their own way on commercial flights given they had been warned for months to leave.

“We need to make sure that Australians understand when the Australian government … issues travel warnings and says get out of somewhere, that they should heed those warnings, not wait for a possible free ticket home,” he said.

“Whilst the government is right to help people now to get out and to provide opportunities where they can, it’s not unreasonable that people should be paying the price of a commercial ticket, as long as they have the means to do so.”

Wong said the approach to repatriation flights remained the same as it did when conflict in the Middle East broke out after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, when they were offered for free.

-with AAP