Pope Leo travels to Lebanon on Sunday, where he is expected to appeal for peace in a country that is a continued target of Israeli air strikes, on the second and final leg of his first overseas trip as leader of the Catholic Church.
The first US pope will arrive from Turkey, where he has been visiting for four days and warned that humanity's future was at risk because of the world's unusual number of bloody conflicts and condemned violence in the name of religion.
Leo is due to land at Beirut's Hariri International Airport at 3.45 p.m. (1345 GMT), ahead of meetings with the president and prime minister and an address to national leaders, the pope's second to a foreign government.
The pope, 70 and in good health, has a crowded itinerary in Lebanon, visiting five cities and towns from Sunday to Tuesday, when he returns to Rome. Leo will not travel to the south, the target of Israeli strikes.
His schedule includes a prayer at the site of a 2020 chemical explosion at the Beirut port that killed 200 people and caused billions of dollars' worth of damage.
He will also lead an outdoor Mass on the Beirut waterfront and visit a psychiatric hospital, one of the few mental health facilities in Lebanon, where carers and residents are eagerly anticipating his arrival.
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