BEIRUT was a city under siege yesterday as Israeli jets pounded the southern suburbs and frightened residents emptied the shelves of supermarkets in fearful anticipation of a prolonged blockade.

Coaches and buses lined up outside some of Beirut’s top hotels as nervous tourists, mainly from the Gulf, fled the city. The streets of the capital, normally choked with traffic, were almost deserted as residents huddled inside their homes.

During the past three days F16s and Israeli warships off the coast have bombed the airport, flyovers, key road junctions and fuel depots, sending thick black smoke billowing into the sky.

They have hit Hezbollah’s radio and television stations, and last night they destroyed the Shia group’s headquarters in southern Beirut as well as the home of its leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.

He escaped unhurt, and within minutes of the attack threatened to wreak revenge on Israel. Speaking on Hezbollah’s television channel but addressing Israelis, he said: “You wanted an open war and we are ready for an open war. Look at the warship that has attacked Beirut, as it burns and sinks before your very eyes.”

Israel initially said that one of its vessels had been lightly hit by a rocket and there had been no casualties, but admitted later that the damage to its missile ship was “more severe than we thought at first”.

It did not deny claims by the pan-Arab television channel al-Jazeera that four servicemen were missing, or reports in the Israeli press that the ship had been hit by an Iranian-built pilotless drone packed with explosives.

“Apparently Hezbollah hit one of the ships in the sea off Lebanon. We don’t know yet exactly what hit the ship,” an Israeli spokeswoman said. The Israeli media reported that the ship had been 10 miles from the Lebanese coast when it was attacked. The vessel, on fire and its rudder damaged, was being towed back to Israel.

Israel said another Hezbollah missile hit a merchant ship, possibly from Egypt. The vessel had to be evacuated.

Amid the persistent rumble of Israeli jets overhead, Beirutis sat on their balconies, sipping tiny cups of coffee, smoking cigarettes and glancing occasionally skyward.

“It’s just like the war years again,” said Fadi Deeb, a grocer in the Hamra district. “After 30 years, nothing has changed.”

Once known as the Paris of the East, the elegant Lebanese capital had only just begun to recover from two decades of conflict when the Israelis launched their offensive.

Yesterday Beirut’s upmarket clothes boutiques and jewellery outlets were closed and shuttered at a time when the city is usually packed with wealthy tourists.

Festivals were cancelled. Most restaurants and cafés were closed. The supermarkets, however, conducted roaring business with basic commodities such as bread, nappies, fresh milk, sugar and rice rapidly vanishing from the shelves.

One young mother snatched the last carton of eggs from another woman, telling her bluntly: “I have children. You don’t.”

Another shopper, Rita Habboush, said: “I don’t know what to do when I run out of milk for the children. My parents went through this nightmare during the civil war and now it’s my turn.” Petrol stations were running low on supplies, and with Israeli gunboats imposing a sea blockade of Lebanon’s ports it was unclear when more fuel supplies would arrive. During the morning, power was cut throughout the city and the streets once more echoed to the familiar roar of generators.

Israeli warplanes struck the main highway heading east from Beirut to the Syrian border for the second time in less than 24 hours, rendering it impassable. Desperate tourists were undeterred, hiring taxis or buses to take them out of the country along smaller roads that snake across the mountains into the Bekaa Valley and the Syrian border. An estimated 10,000 Britons are stranded in Lebanon.

“I love Lebanon and come here every summer, but I have had enough for this year,” said Abdullah Huthanayn, a Saudi holidaymaker.

Huge posters of the beaming Hezbollah leader gazed down on the almost deserted streets of Haret Hreik, normally a teeming neighbourhood of dilapidated apartment blocks and narrow streets jammed with vehicles and pedestrians.

The Hezbollah headquarters in Haret Hreik was a sprawling compound guarded by armed fighters in black uniforms. By mid-afternoon they had all disappeared as the leadership went underground, anticipating the Israeli airstrike.

Regardless of the outcome of the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, the clear losers will be the Lebanese who had hoped that their country was shedding its image as a synonym for violence.

“This is a tsunami. All the tourists have gone. No one is coming and those who are here are staying at home,” Paul Aris, head of the association of restaurant and café owners, said.

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