However it was reported that the accessment team was there to access the best possible way to evacuate those American citizens who wanted to be evacuated. It is not a mandatory evacuation.
Scary times, the interview with the priest stuck in a Beirut hotel (on Fox) reminded me a bit of the people stuck in NOLA during Katrina. Bad luck being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
G-8 Evacuates Citizens From Lebanon, Sends Warships (Update2)
July 16 (Bloomberg) -- Italy and the U.K. sent warships to the Eastern Mediterranean as a fifth day of fighting in the region prompted most of the Group of Eight countries to make plans for evacuating their citizens from Lebanon and Israel.A U.S. team arrived at the embassy in Lebanon today to assist with planning an operation to aid any of the estimated 25,000 American citizens in the country who want to get out. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in St. Petersburg, Russia, that the security situation was being assessed ``practically hour by hour.''
The U.K. ordered the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious and the assault ship HMS Bulwark to the region as a ``precautionary'' measure, said Tom Kelly, a spokesman for U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said yesterday France had taken ``necessary measures'' to rescue its citizens. Russia foresees an ``immediate'' evacuation of its nationals from the region, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said today in St. Petersburg.
Evacuations
Italy became the first country to start evacuation. Early today, almost 200 Italians and 200 other foreign tourists arrived in Rome in C-130 Hercules transport planes from Syria, where they had arrived on buses from Beirut. The Italian destroyer Durand de la Penne is sitting off the coast of Lebanon in case more than 1,000 nationals still there need to be pulled out, Italy's Foreign Ministry said on its Web site.
France is sending a ferry to Lebanon from Cyprus to evacuate as many as 1,200 of the country's almost 20,000 citizens living there, according to a French official who asked not to be named.
Russia will evacuate by plane about 74 people through Jordan from the Palestinian Authority territories tomorrow, state-run Rossiya Television reported, citing the foreign ministry. There may be 1,500 Russians in Lebanon, Rossiya said, and there are plans to have them evacuated by boat from Beirut.