A British woman who arrived in Cyprus this morning on the first shipload of Britons evacuated from Lebanon described how her children watched from the windows of their home as Israeli fighter-bombers battered Beirut over the past week.

Maria Noujeim, 43, from Portsmouth, has lived in Lebanon for the past 15 years with her husband Joe, a 49-year-old Lebanese national.

They fled their apartment in Hadathm, near Beirut airport, yesterday afternoon and were among 180 people evacuated last night on HMS Gloucester, a destroyer that evacuated 180 vulnerable Britons last night.

"It’s good to be somewhere safe - things just blew up there," Mrs Noujeim said after disembarking at the port of Limassol, with her husband and three children.

She said: "My concern was the children, they were watching the bombing from the apartment every night - the planes coming over, the bombs dropping and the airport blowing up.

"We wanted to leave straightaway because of the children but we have left my husband’s family, including his mother who is on her own. It is very hard and it has been quite emotional."

"It’s hell on earth, it’s escalating day by day," added her husband, Joe, while their five-year-old son, Michael, admitted: "I was a little scared. The house started moving."

Tony Blair was forced yesterday to defend the Government against accusations that it had taken too long to get the evacuation up and running. France, it was pointed out, had already evacuated almost 1,000 of its citizens through a specially chartered cruise ship.

But although the Prime Minister said that as many as 5,000 people could be picked up from Beirut by the end of the week, the pace of the operation is not expected to pick up significantly today.

The Foreign Office is yet to call for a mass evacuation and the two big warships that could between them carry thousands of Britons to safety - HMS Illustrious and HMS Bulwark - are still some way from the Lebanese capital.

Instead, only the most vulnerable will be offered places on HMS York, another Type 42 destroyer, and HMS Gloucester when it arrives back in Beirut this afternoon. Commander Mike Patterson, the captain of HMS Gloucester, said that the RAF was also planning a few flights into the city today.

There are more than 20,000 British citizens and those with dual nationality in Lebanon and tens of thousands more Commonwealth citizens who could ask for British consular help.

British officials say, however, that many might decide to hang on in Lebanon despite the Israeli air strikes that have killed some 280 people, most of the civilians.

Mrs Noujeim said that she hoped to return to Lebanon one day when the violence has subsided. "Lebanon is a lovely place to live, it was starting to go well. This just came from nowhere, it was a surprise to everybody," she said. "There was just no way to get out as it was far too dangerous to go to Syria or anywhere else."

Mrs Noujeim praised the crew aboard HMS Gloucester and said they had kept her children entertained as well as providing food and drink. "The trip on the ship was fantastic, they really looked after us so well, they were absolutely brilliant," he said.

Mr Noujeim described the situation in Lebanon as "hell on earth" and said the violence was escalating day by day. He said: "First they started bombing the runway and the airport, after that they bombed the city. We were surrounded with war."

His wife added: "It just sort of blew up, we were very close to what was happening and the kids could hear it all. All the supermarkets were empty and one by one the power stations were being bombed."

A Norwegian boat carrying about 1,100 people also arrived from Beirut in the southeastern city of Larnaca, as well as a Greek frigate carrying about 270 people, mainly Greeks and Greek Cypriots.

At least half a dozen more ships were expected to dock in Cyprus during the day as foreign governments scrambled to evacuate nationals increasingly angry at being left to fend for themselves amid the Israeli bombardment.

An Israeli commander said agreement had been reached with Western military attaches for as many as 20 vessels to ferry out evacuees along safe sea corridors during the day. The American, British, French, Canadian, Greek, Norwegian and Swedish governments all had ships in the region ready to bring out nationals.

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