Foreigners flee Israel's Lebanon onslaught with fears & tears

While British and US citizens started to leave by helicopters, France chartered a ferry, which can carry some 1,200 passengers, and other European, Asian and African nationals were being bussed overland to neighbouring Syria.

In six days of relentless air, sea and ground attacks, Israel has tightened its grip on the country by imposing a maritime blockade and gouging deep craters out of Beirut airport's runways, shutting down the facility.

Israel launched the offensive to crush the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, but the strikes have also targeted infrastructure and killed more than 170 people, almost all of them civilians and including foreigners.

Foreigners heading out of Lebanon were fearing for their safety as Israeli forces have targeted the roads to Syria, despite assurances Monday from the Jewish state that it was liasing with Washington and the EU on the evacuation.

In a silence only broken by whining complaints, foreigners boarded busses at meeting points across the capital for a six-hour journey to the Syrian capital from where they will fly home.

For safety reasons, European embassies were coordinating joint convoys for their nationals, who are mostly of Lebanese descent and had spent the summer holidays to visit family back home.

"I feel we are cowards. We are leaving our dear Lebanese friends behind. But I have not been in a war zone before, and my family wants me to go back home," said Belgian Sigrid Hoste, a teacher who had been studying Arabic in Lebanon.

"I am really angry at what Israel is doing. It is a disproportionate attack, and nothing justifies war. Beirut was a buzzing place just last week, today it is a ghost town. They have no right to do this," she said.