LONDON, July 17: Britain was preparing for the biggest evacuation carried out by its military since World War II, a Foreign Office minister said on Monday as Israel continued to pound Lebanon in deadly air raids.

Royal Navy warships were gathering off the Lebanese coast as plans were being drawn up for the possible evacuation of 12,000 British nationals and 10,000 dual nationals, plus other Commonwealth citizens, Foreign Office minister Kim Howells told parliament.

Given the numbers involved, he said the Royal Navy could be faced with ‘the biggest evacuation since Dunkirk’, when some 330,000 soldiers were evacuated by sea from France in 1940.

Destroyer ships HMS York and HMS Gloucester are waiting in the eastern Mediterranean Sea off the Lebanese coast, with the aircraft carrier flagship HMS Illustrious and the assault ship HMS Bulwark heading to the area.

Howells said the ‘safest and most practical’ option for removing the bulk of those trapped in Lebanon would be by sea.

A foreign office ‘rapid deployment team’ has arrived in Beirut to assist embassy staff and, together with a military reconnaissance team, will carry out ‘detailed planning for a possible evacuation’, Mr Howells added.

British helicopters have already taken some 70 vulnerable people such as families with young children and the infirm out of Lebanon to the nearby island of Cyprus, where Britain has two sovereign military bases.

In Cyprus, a British forces spokesman said among those already flown in from Lebanon were ‘particularly serious medical cases’ who were being treated at a military hospital in Akrotiri.

French, Spanish, Dutch and American aircraft were parked at the Akrotiri Base, on the south-western coast of Cyprus, as evacuation plans were thrashed out.

“The British bases are not a reception facility but the airfield can be used as a transit point. We have limited accommodation but temporary units can be prepared,” said the military spokesman. —AFP