US Marines land in Lebanon

A US Marine helps children fleeing Lebanon to board a landing craft at Beirut yesterday. Picture / Reuters

US Marines landed on a Beirut beach yesterday and herded hundreds of Americans on to a landing craft, spearheading a scramble by many countries to help their citizens escape Israel's bombardment of Lebanon.

The Marines and Lebanese soldiers carried the evacuees, including many women and children, through breaking waves to the boat.

Some frightened children cried, but many people smiled with relief.

"We are very happy to leave," said Fadia Semaan, a Lebanese-born United States citizen, who was fleeing with her husband and three children aged between 9 and 15.

Her husband, George, said: "We are used to war from 30 years ago, but the kids are not. We are ... also very sad. We left a lot of family behind with no food or money or anything else."

The 40 lightly armed Marines came ashore at dawn in a landing craft from the troop carrier USS Nashville to evacuate about 1200 Americans.

Israeli forces have been pounding Lebanon since Hizbollah guerrillas based there captured two Israeli soldiers on July 12. So far, 299 people have been killed in Lebanon and 29 in Israel.

Dozens of aircraft dropped 23 tonnes of explosives on a building in Beirut's southern suburbs where senior Hizbollah leaders were believed to be hiding. The group denied any of its leaders or members were killed.

The landing craft was the first American military vessel to arrive in Lebanon as part of a huge land, sea and air operation to evacuate thousands of foreigners caught in the fighting.

Traffic near the beach, about 15km from central Beirut, was light as the rescuers checked passports of Americans waiting to be evacuated.

The landing craft returned to the Nashville to bring in a bulldozer to smooth the beach, allowing access for people in wheelchairs.

On Wednesday, about 1100 American evacuees who left Beirut by sea and air reached Cyprus.

France said about 8000 of its 17,000 citizens resident in Lebanon had asked to be evacuated. Germany sent at least 500 citizens by bus to Syria.

Seven of about 90 New Zealanders wanting to leave were out by last night and more were expected to leave overnight.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Helen Tunnah said four New Zealanders and their non-citizen family members were on the British warship HMS Gloucester, which reached Cyprus yesterday afternoon.

Another New Zealand man had left Lebanon by road through Syria, and a mother and child evacuated on Wednesday were now in London.

The family of Squadron Leader Andrew Greig of the RNZAF - who featured in the Herald yesterday - were waiting at the port of Tyre for a United Nations-chartered boat.

Squadron Leader Greig's mother-in-law, Beulah Wood of Mt Albert, said her daughter Bronwyn Wood and grandchildren Josia and Oliver hoped to be in Cyprus by this morning.

"Andrew is staying, but it is a relief they are going. I'm hoping to get a phone call from Cyprus by 6am."

Fourteen members of a New Zealand-Lebanese wedding party are still stranded in Beirut but most hope to be out by this morning also.

Fadi Bouchaaya, a 30-year-old restaurant owner from Papakura who went to Lebanon to marry his wife, Carla, said it was a "strange feeling" with things relatively calm outside his father's North Beirut home. "Everyone is leaving - they have no choice."

Michael Moore, a New Zealand evacuee in Cyprus, told One News it was a relief to be out.

In Lebanon, he stayed with his grandmother, uncle and aunt and was unable to contact his family in New Zealand because the cellphone had been out for days.

Ms Tunnah said New Zealanders were being helped in Cyprus by the honorary consul and ministry officials from Rome and London.

Britain has included New Zealand in its plans, which are for its citizens and their immediate family members, including those who are not British.

As foreigners pour from Beirut, Lebanese in the city fear the worst.

"I have a very bad feeling that after the foreigners flee, the bombings will get worse," said 37-year old Ziad Nayef, a costume designer. "Nobody cares about Arab lives."