A French man holds his grandchild as they wait to be evacuated from Beirut Monday.
Space shuttle Discovery landed safely this morning in Florida and Congress is about to address three controversial measures this week, but it is the crisis in the Middle East that is dominating the headlines.
Hezbollah rockets hit the Israeli city of Haifa today and Israel's military forces briefly entered southern Lebanon, as operations against Hezbollah entered day six. Some Western nations have already begun moving citizens out of Lebanon and the U.S. is preparing to do the same.
Maura Harty, assistant secretary of Consular Affairs, said in an interview on CNN's American Morning that the U.S. is taking steps to help U.S. citizens leave Lebanon and noted that the U.S. Navy and commercial ships were heading to the region. So far, a few Americans have left the country with U.S. assistance, but Harty urged Americans in Lebanon not to gather outside the U.S. embassy in Beirut for their own safety. Instead, she instructed Americans to
e-mail the State Department or call the embassy directly to tell U.S. officials of their location. The latest State Department bulleting (as of 9:02 a.m. ET) can be found
here.
Frustration by world leaders at the situation was apparent when a live microphone caught President Bush using an expletive in discussing it with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the G8 Summit. Bush was speaking specifically about trying to get U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to do more to end the conflict.
"See the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this s--- and it's over," Bush is overheard saying to Blair.
Earlier in the day, Blair and Annan called for the deployment of an international force in southern Lebanon, in order to end the spiraling conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
Tune into CNN throughout the day for the latest developments in this story.
