Nearly 90 British nationals are trapped in southern Lebanon despite Foreign Office attempts to rescue them from Israeli shelling and air raids, it emerged today.
A Foreign Office official said that 86 people were unable to to leave for Beirut or other exit points because of the ferocious bombardment, which has killed 72 people in the last 24 hours, the heaviest daily death toll yet.
"We’re very concerned about the safety of these British nationals," said the official. "We have told the Israelis about them, so they are fully aware there are British and other foreign nationals in southern Lebanon.
"We’re doing everything we can to sort it out but the 86 people are in different locations across southern Lebanon."
The Britons, a mixture of holidaymakers and expatriates, have been told to stay where they are until a plan has been formulated to get them out. Food and water is running low in the area and the bombing has made it almost impossible to ferry the wounded to hospital.
Officials declined to comment on one report that a British special forces team was in Lebanon to help extract them. Foreign Office sources said however that there were no plans at this stage to use the military to rescue the Britons in southern Lebanon, while the Ministry of Defence said that for "operational security reasons", plans would remain secret until they had been escorted safely out of southern Lebanon.
Tonight 1,800 Britons set sail from Beirut aboard a Royal Navy warship bound for the port of Limassol in Cyprus. Hundreds more had queued at the port all day, waiting to go through Lebanese passport control before going up the ramp and into the hold.
More than 300 people escaping the bomb-ravaged country have already arrived back in Britain, after being ferried to safety at the start of the largest war-zone evacuation since Dunkirk.
They were among an exodus of more than 10,000 foreigners, including 4,100 Danes and more than 2,000 Americans, who have already left, while a United Nations-chartered vessel is heading for the port of Tyre to help with the evacuation of further foreign nationals.
Another British ship, as yet unnamed, will dock in Beirut tomorrow morning to pick up more of those desperate to leave the conflict zone, the Foreign Office said, while there will be six flights today from Cyprus to Britain.
In the war-torn country they had left, Israel ordered all civilians to leave their homes in southern Lebanon, and said that a temporary ground invasion might be necessary to achieve their objectives - apparently of bombing Hezbollah out of a 20 mile deep swathe of territory north of the Israeli border with Lebanon.
So far, around 300 people have died and 1,000 have been wounded, with half a million people displaced.
Pleas from world leaders - including United Nations’ Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Pope Benedict XVI - for an immediate ceasefire have gone unheeded in nine days of violence, which erupted after militant group Hezbollah launched a cross-border attack on an Israeli military patrol, killing eight soldiers and capturing two.
Jan Egeland, the UN emergency relief coordinator, said that nearly a third of the dead or wounded in the conflict were children. He warned that, without a truce allowing aid agencies to begin the relief effort, there would be a "catastrophe" in the country.
HMS Bulwark, the vessel transporting the British evacuees away from danger, is an amphibious landing ship which was on her way home to Plymouth before she was diverted to help the biggest war zone evacuation since Dunkirk. The hold and wardrooms were cleared to make room for the evacuees.
Bulwark’s captain Clive Johnstone said that there were beds aboard for 1,000 people. If the number rises to 5,000, the conditions will be "rudimentary", he said. Capt Johnstone said: "It will be pretty cramped. We have graded it into three classes - steerage, if there are 2,000 people, sardine, if there are 3,000 people, and anchovy class, if we get 5,000."
Crammed into wardrooms and corridors aboard Bulwark, the British evacuees fleeing Lebanon told of their relief to be safe. Martin and Denise Carlin, from Burnley in Lancashire, were on holiday visiting their daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren when the violence broke out.
They had no option but to stay in Beirut when the international airport was bombed, and Mrs Carlin, 48, said: "It has been a proper nightmare. It was a war zone.
"Our daughter lives 10 minutes from the airport and it felt like the bombing was on top of us, it was frightening. We heard the jets going over us, a small noise and then silence - we didn’t know if it was coming straight for us."
Around 90 extra staff have been sent to Cyprus to help process the passengers arriving from Beirut - including 40 FCO officials, 30 immigration and Home Office staff and 20 people from the international Red Cross and other charities who will offer medical and pastoral care.
This morning two RAF Chinooks airlifted 66 vulnerable people, including four children and the disabled. A man with no legs was the first to be hurried on to the waiting helicopter.
An estimated 22,000 Britons, including 10,000 with dual nationality, were in Lebanon when the latest violence erupted. The aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious was also expected to join the operation today.
The first Britons evacuated arrived back in the UK early today, relieved to have escaped unharmed from the terrifying week-long bombardment. A charter flight landed at Gatwick at about 1.30am carrying 80 evacuees who had been ferried to Cyprus on HMS Gloucester. Most looked exhausted as they filtered through arrivals at Gatwick’s South Terminal following a four-hour flight from Cyprus. Many spoke of their joy at fleeing but expressed sadness at those they left behind.
Among them was 32-year-old Elise Mazegi, from Brighton, East Sussex, who made the sea crossing and flight with her five-month-old triplets, Isabella, Yasmin and Joey, and three-year-old son Dany. She said: "We were up in the mountains when the bombings were taking place, so didn’t experience anything like Beirut.
"I’m just relieved to be home. It has been very tiring. I’m looking forward to a reunion with my husband later today in Brighton. It was a really well-organised evacuation, and everybody was really helpful."
For others the flight brought heartbreak. Nadia Hamza, 24, from Willesden, north-west London, broke down in tears as she spoke of how she has not heard from her three young children who were on a month-long holiday with her former husband in Soor.
Ms Hamza said that she received a phone call from her ex-husband last Friday, but has since watched news reports terrified they have been caught up in the attacks.
This morning she turned up at Gatwick in the hope that her children, Ahmed, six, Mohammed, five, and four-year-old Dalia, were among the first wave of evacuees to return to the UK. They were not. She said: "I haven’t eaten or slept since last Friday, I’m going out of my mind.
"I have been glued to the television watching all these images and not knowing whether my children are alive or dead. Every time I try to phone my ex-husband, I get no answer. I heard about this flight and hoped that my children will be on there, but I just don’t know. If they’re not on board, I will keep coming back."
