A British destroyer docked in Beirut port tonight to start a mass evacuation that Tony Blair said could see 5,000 British nationals removed to safety by the end of the week.
After criticism that the British had been slow to respond to the crisis - France has already evacuated around 1,000 of its citizens - the HMS Gloucester was the first of six British ships lined up for the evacuation to dock in Beirut, although its capacity as a carrier is limited and it was expected to take 180 of the most vulnerable evacuees to nearby Cyprus.
Tens of thousands of Lebanese and foreigners fled for their lives today as Israeli jets unleashed more deadly air strikes around the country on the seventh day of military action that has now killed at least 250 people.
In one of the biggest evacuations since the Second World War, helicopters, ferries and passenger ships were being commandeered to pick up foreign nationals trapped in the fighting between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah militants who abducted two Israeli soldiers last week.
With Beirut’s airport in tatters, foreigners fled by bus to Syria to escape Israeli bombs, missiles and artillery fire, as others were taken away by ship or helicopter to Cyprus. Israel has imposed an air and sea blockade around Lebanon but has said it will co-ordinate with foreign governments to allow their terrified nationals to leave.
Meanwhile, the death toll in the military action continued to mount. Nine Lebanese civilians, all from one family and including children, were killed and four wounded in an air strike that destroyed a house in the southern village of Aitaroun.
Another strike, on a Lebanese army base in the area of Kfar Chima, a Hezbollah stronghold near Beirut, killed 11 soldiers and wounded 35 others. Lebanese officials said soldiers were rushing to their bomb shelters when the base took a direct hit.
In addition, 25 Israelis, including 12 civilians, have been killed in the last week in barrages of Hezbollah rockets into northern Israel, including the city of Haifa. One person was killed in a barrage on the northern town of Nahariya today.
Israel said that it has not ruled out a ground invasion of its northern neighbour in a bid to crush the Hezbollah militia.
"At this stage we do not think we have to activate massive ground forces into Lebanon but if we have to do this, we will," Moshe Kaplinsky, Israel’s deputy army chief, told Israel Radio. He said that the offensive would end within a few weeks, adding that Israel needed more time to complete"very clear goals".
But there were hints that negotiations were taking place behind the scenes, sending the Israeli stock market sharply higher. Tzipi Livni, the Foreign Minister, told a press conference after meeting a high-level United Nations team this morning that Israeli diplomats were working to ensure an outcome safeguarding Israel's long-term security.
"We are beginning a diplomatic process in parallel to the military operations, which shall continue," she said.
"The military objectives are to hit Hezbollah's infrastructure and physical strength. The diplomatic process is not intended to reduce the time available for the IDF's operations, but as an extension of it in order to avoid the need for additional operations in the future."
Tony Blair directly accused Iran and Syria of financially and militarily supporting Hezbollah’s bombardment of Israel. Casting aside all diplomatic niceties he said there was no doubt Iran was supporting terrorist action through the region, and practically accused it of supplying the weapons that were being used to attack British troops in Basra.
The Prime Minister, who believes the two countries are using extremist groups to prevent the spread of democracy in the Middle East, said that Iran was giving the same weapons to Hezbollah to wage their war against Israel as those that were used in Iraq.
Mr Blair, speaking in the Commons after returning from the G8 summit in St Petersburg told MPs: “Hezbollah is supported by Iran and Syria, by the former in weapons, weapons incidentally very similar if not identical to those used against British troops in Basra, by the latter in many different ways and by both financially.”
This morning, a Greek ferry chartered by France with about 900 people on board - mostly French but from other European nations too - docked in the the Cypriot port of Larnaca. It was forced to leave some 300 passengers in Beirut in order to leave port before nightfall.
Britain evacuated 63 vulnerable people by helicopter yesterday, but the Royal Navy faces a massive task to evacuate thousands of British nationals and other "entitled" individuals. There are some 10,000 British nationals in Lebanon, 10,000 more with dual nationals and potentially tens of thousands of Commonwealth citizens for whom Britain has a consular obligation under international agreements.
Britain how has six ships in the region, including the Royal Navy flagship, the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious, and an amphibious assault ship, HMS Bulwark, both of which arrive off Beirut tomorrow. "We are doing absolutely everything we can to make sure the evacuation happens as swiftly and as properly as possible," the Prime Minister said today.
Among those trapped by the fighting are Camille and Carolanne Nehme, from Cathcart in Glasgow, who are holed up in the southern city of Tyre with their nine-month-old daughter, Melody. Echoing a familiar refrain, Mr Nehme said that he had tried to call the British Embassy in Beirut, but the line was constantly engaged. "We haven’t been told anything," he said. "Everybody wants to be somewhere else, but there is nowhere to go. We are staying here but really don’t know what the future holds."
Larnaca will also be the first port of call for nearly 50,000 Canadian citizens trapped by the fighting; Ottawa has chartered three ships - each capable of carrying 900 people - to help in the evacuation. An Italian vessel - with 186 Italians, 58 Lebanese and 49 Swedes and a new-born baby on board - docked there last night.
The United States - which flew 43 people out of Lebanon Monday on military helicopters, most of them children, elderly and sick people - has chartered a ship capable of carrying 750 passengers from Lebanon to Cyprus, which is due to arrive tomorrow. The United States has an estimated 25,000 passport-holders in Lebanon.
