The United Arab Emirates Foreign Ministry announced that Emirati citizens would be banned from traveling to Lebanon, effective Tuesday.
Saudi Arabia also raised its advisory for Lebanon Tuesday, but fell short of the "complete ban" that the UAE announced.
The UAE also said it would reduce the size of its diplomatic mission in Beirut to a minimum.
While Lebanon has been the frequent target of travel advisories due to being the frequent target of bombings and terrorist attacks, these new advisories come after a relative lull in violence in the tiny country. After a number of deadly attacks in 2013 and 2014, the last year has seen only one major bombing – an attack in November that killed 47 people in Beirut's southern suburbs.
While the Saudi warning cited concerns over the safety of its nationals, the move comes just four days after the kingdom revoked a pledge of $4 billion in military aid for Lebanon.
The official SPA news agency quoted an unnamed official as saying the grants had been revoked due to diplomatic actions Lebanon took that were " inconsistent with the fraternal relations between the two countries ":
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia stood by Lebanon in all its difficult stages and supported it without any discrimination among its sects and groups, a matter is well known by all Lebanese people and we do not need to prove that. The last aid which was recently announced by the Kingdom was a support to the Lebanese army and internal security forces to ensure achieving security and stability of Lebanon and maintain its sovereignty. In spite of these honorable stances, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was countered by anti Lebanese stances at Arab, regional and international levels in light of so-called Hezbollah's confiscation of the Lebanese state's will, as happened in the Arab League Council and the Organizations of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) regarding Lebanon's non-condemnation of the blatant attacks against the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and its Consulate General in Mash-had which are contrary to international law and diplomatic norms.
All of Saudi Arabia's GCC partners came out in vocal support of Friday's decision.
It is unclear how strict the UAE will be in enforcing its ban, as a previous ban in 2014 was reported to not have been enforced.
However, Lebanon can ill-afford any more blows, no matter how small, to its economy, as the pressure of hosting more than a million refugees from the Syrian civil war and the fall in tourism from the string of bombings in 2013 have left its economy in shambles.