U.S. Considers Plans to Evacuate 25,000 Americans from Lebanon

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia – U.S. officials are strategising to evacuate an estimated number of 25,000 Americans from Lebanon to the neighboring island of Cyprus for possibilty of them boarding the commercial planes as the violence reports are increasing by the hour.

"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, was targeting 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.

"We've already allowed authorized departures of some of our personnel in the embassy," Rice said on Fox News Sunday.

The United States estimates 25,000 Americans live or work in Lebanon, but officials assume far fewer would choose to leave if they could. The State Department said it was working with the Pentagon on a plan for helping American citizens leave.