"We are frustrated and disappointed, but we are O.K.," said Bob Elazon, an
Illinois resident who complained that the US evacuation was badly organized.
Elazon, who left his native Lebanon 34 years ago, was with his 20-year-old
daughter, Anna, who was visiting the country for the first time. His wife
departed just before the fighting erupted.
Meanwhile, the first plane carrying US evacuees landed outside Baltimore
early Thursday, and eager family members waited to greet the 145 Americans
aboard the charter flight from Cyprus.
Some 900 Americans arrived in Cyprus early Thursday aboard a luxury cruise
ship - the first mass US evacuation from Lebanon since the Israeli airstrikes
started more than a week ago.
It was among dozens of cruise ships evacuating thousands of foreigners from
Lebanon. Some 8,000 of 25,000 US citizens in Lebanon have asked to leave. So
many people were leaving Lebanon that boats were forced to line up outside
Beirut harbor and had to wait before docking in Cyprus.
Israel's series of small ground forays across the border have aimed to push
back Hezbollah guerrillas who have continued to fire rockets into northern
Israel despite more than a week of massive Israeli bombardment against
them - raising the question of whether air power alone can suppress them.
Guerrillas fired 25 rockets into Israel on on Thursday, which caused no
casualties.
But the guerrillas have been fighting back hard on the ground, wounding three
Israeli soldiers Thursday a day after killing two. On Thursday, an Israeli unit
sent in to ambush Hezbollah guerrillas had a fierce gunbattle with a cell of
militants.
In another clash, just across the border from the Israeli town of Avivim,
guerrillas fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli tank, seriously wounding one
soldier. Hezbollah said in a statement that its guerrillas destroyed two Israeli
tanks as they tried to enter the Lebanese border village of Maroun al-Ras,
across from Avivim.
Israel has mainly limited itself to attacks from the air and sea, reluctant
to send in ground troops on terrain dominated by Hezbollah.
But an Israeli army spokesman refused to rule out the possibility of a
full-scale invasion. Israel also broadcast warnings into south Lebanon on
Wednesday telling civilians to leave the region, a possible prelude to a larger
Israeli ground operation.
"There is a possibility - all our options are open. At the moment, it's
a very limited, specific incursion but all options remain open," Capt. Jacob
Dallal, an Israeli army spokesman, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
