The United States and other nations were plucking their citizens from Lebanon on Wednesday, as thousands fled Israeli air raids any way they could.
”It’s very bad, very sad, I can’t believe what’s happening,” said a tearful Lubna Jaber, an Australian who had come to visit relatives in Lebanon. She was waiting in downtown Beirut with about 350 compatriots to board buses and then a ferry to Turkey.
”Have you seen the pictures of the children who were killed? The world should see them, especially the Americans who support Israel,” said the 28-year-old, holding her six-year-old son.
Nine military ships, including a helicopter carrier and a dock landing ship, and thousands of marines and sailors were involved in the operation, US officials said.
More than 2 400 Americans are to be evacuated by air and sea on Wednesday out of a total of 8 000 to be brought out.
About 200 Belgians waited to get on buses from downtown Beirut to the Syrian border. ”I got the green light from the Israelis,” Belgian consul Karina Tuytschaever told Reuters.
Two explosions from an Israeli air strike echoed over the city as the families clustered round the buses.
Thousands of Lebanese, as well as foreigners, have braved the road to Syria to flee an Israeli bombardment that has killed 277 people in eight days, all but 27 of them civilians.
Israel attacked Lebanon after Hezbollah fighters seized two Israeli soldiers and killed eight in a cross-border raid on July 12. Hezbollah rocket strikes have killed 13 civilians in Israel.
Lebanon’s tourist season was approaching its height when the conflict erupted, stranding thousands of surprised foreigners.
”It’s my first time in Lebanon and probably the last,” said Australian property developer Victor Kheir (29) ”I came to visit relatives, but an hour after I landed they bombed the airport.”
Australia’s plan to evacuate over 300 people on a Turkish ship was thrown into disarray when the firm that owns the ferry said it had been double-booked, an Australian official said.
Scramble for places
Australia was attempting to find places for the stranded evacuees on British, Canadian and US ships, while authorities said two ships, each capable of taking 800 people, were due to arrive in Beirut later this week to pick up more Australians.
About 25 000 Australians with dual nationality are in Lebanon and about 7 500 have registered to evacuate. Australia has already bussed about 200 of its nationals out through Syria.
In Cyprus, 75km from Lebanon, US Ambassador Oronald Schlicher said staff had secured hotel rooms and space in schools and were setting up a cot camp in a fairground on the island to accommodate Americans fleeing the violence.
A US-chartered ship was due to bring 800 to 900 people, mostly Americans, under military escort to Cyprus later in the day — the largest batch of Americans yet to leave Lebanon.
Six British ships, including two aircraft carriers, stood by to rescue Britons. The destroyer HMS Gloucester reached Cyprus on Wednesday with 180 people from Beirut. Prime Minister Tony Blair said about 5 000 would be moved by the end of the week.
”Its going to be a major effort in the next couple of days,” said British High Commissioner to Cyprus Peter Millett.
Samantha Bradley (33) who runs a fish processing business with her Lebanese husband reached Cyprus with her two children. ”Although the Israelis were saying they were attacking military targets they were bombing roads and homes as well,” she said.
Pushing Lebanon back 50 years
At least 54 civilians were killed on Wednesday as Israeli jets and gunboats pummelled towns and villages across Lebanon.
Israeli ground troops headed back across the border to strike Hezbollah outposts as another volley of rockets fell on northern Israel on the eighth day of an offensive that the international community has so far done little to end.
Israeli helicopters also fired rockets on a residential Christian district in Beirut, the first direct strikes in the centre of the capital.
”The security Cabinet met this morning and decided on the continuation of the offensives in Lebanon and Gaza with no time limit,” an Israeli official said, describing the military’s action as an ”intensive war against Hezbollah”.
The Shi’ite Muslim militia retorted that its guerrillas can continue to strike Israel with ”an arsenal of rockets for long months, and not just days or weeks”.
More than 300 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel unleashed a massive military assault it says is aimed at destroying Hezbollah after the capture of two soldiers eight days ago in attacks that left another eight dead.
The United Nations is drawing up plans for an international force to try to restore calm in Lebanon but US President George Bush — who says Israel has the right to defend itself — insisted that Hezbollah and Syria had to be reined in before there could be peace in the region.
And Israel pressed on with a deadly new wave of attacks against southern and eastern Lebanon on Wednesday, with 21 of the 54 killed in a single village where residents said 10 houses were destroyed.
Israel also continued its deadly offensive in the Gaza Strip which is aimed at retrieving another soldier held captive by Palestinian militants, killing seven people in raids on Wednesday, bringing to 93 the number killed since it launched an operation to retrieve a captive soldier and halt rocket attacks.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, who took office about a year ago after the first elections since former powerbroker Syria ended its three-decade military presence, accused Israel of ”committing massacres” against his people.
”The intensifying aggression in this barbaric way proves that Israel has decided to push Lebanon back 50 years.”
But Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert defended the relentless bombardment, saying it was aimed at obtaining the release of the two Israeli soldiers and the disarmament of Hezbollah in line with an existing UN resolution.
Across the border in northern Israel, a civilian was killed on Tuesday when a rocket hit a park in the resort of Nahariya in the latest of hundreds of rocket attacks by Hezbollah.
Over the past week 25 Israelis have been killed, most in a barrage of Hezbollah rocket fire across the border, including 12 soldiers. Another eight rockets exploded in Israel’s northern metropolis of Haifa on Wednesday, although there were no reports of casualties. – Reuters, AFP