U.S. Makes Lebanon Evacuation Plans [View All]

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2006Jul16/0,4670,USLebanon,00.html

U.S. Makes Lebanon Evacuation Plans
Sunday, July 16, 2006
By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The U.S. Embassy in Beirut said Sunday that teams have arrived by helicopter to work out the logistics for evacuating Americans.

U.S. officials are monitoring violence in Lebanon hour-by-hour to decide whether to evacuate the estimated 25,000 Americans there, possibly to the neighboring Mediterranean island of Cyprus where they could board commercial planes.

"We obviously have plans and contingency plans should we need to bring people out,"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters at the Group of Eight summit Sunday."I get reports on this every couple of hours as to how this is going. Our ambassador who is on the ground will obviously do what we need to protect Americans."

Waves of warplanes bombed Lebanon Sunday, and Hezbollah guerillas continued to fire rockets into Israel. The rockets pounded the northern Israeli city of Haifa in the worst strike on Israel since violence broke out along the border with Lebanon last week.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned there would be"far-reaching consequences"for the rocket attacks from Hezbollah militants. Israel, which has imposed a sea, air and land blockade of Lebanon, wastargeting bridges, roads, the international airport and ports in response to the militants'rocket attacks.

The State Department said Friday that Americans in Lebanon should consider leaving when it was safe to do so. Officials made contingency plans to evacuate people who cannot leave on their own. Family members and non-emergency American employees of the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon have been given permission to leave.

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