WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon has ordered five military ships and thousands of Marines and sailors to help transport U.S. citizens out of Lebanon, a move that could sharply speed up the evacuation as fighting continues.

The U.S. Navy said on Tuesday the Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group and the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit were ordered to head to the area to help evacuate thousands of Americans.

The group includes the three ships in the Iwo Jima group -- the helicopter carrier USS Iwo Jima, amphibious transport dock USS Nashville and the dock landing ship USS Whidbey Island, together carrying 2,200 Marines and sailors.

Two other ships were also ordered to join the Iwo Jima -- the amphibious transport dock USS Trenton and a High Speed Vessel Swift, a catamaran with an aluminum hull.

Helicopters from the Marine expeditionary force have evacuated 68 Americans over the past two days. Those flights continued on Tuesday, the Navy said.

DAY 7, Time magazine, The ancient city of Tyre, sitting on a promontory built by Alexander the Great, is famed worldwide for its wealth of archeological treasures. Yet in the past week, Tyre, one-time home of the entrepreneurial Phoenician seafaring race, has become a casualty of the dark side of history, a place of fear, destruction and death caught up in the age-old hatreds of the Middle East.

A humanitarian disaster appears to be unfolding among the hills and valleys of south Lebanon, where for five days Israel has hammered home a devastating onslaught against Lebanon's Hizballah guerrillas, a campaign that Israel says must end with the crushing of the Shi'ite group's military capabilities.

"This is terror. There are no red lines. They are shooting at ambulances on the road preventing them from coming here," says a distraught Mona Mrowe, an administrator at the Jabel Amel hospital in Tyre, her voice sounding shrill with tension and anger. "I have felt death very close. Yesterday was really ...." Her voice trails off into silence.

DUBAI, 18 July (IRIN) - Aid from the wealthy countries of the Gulf has poured into Lebanon, where intense Israeli attacks have smashed infrastructure and killed hundreds of civilians over the course of the last week.

Over the weekend, the United Arab Emirates Red Crescent (UAERC) released 1 million dirhams (roughly US $273,000) from an emergency relief fund to buy desperately needed supplies for Lebanese victims of recent attacks. And today, the organisation sent 24 ambulances and aircraft to Lebanon via Syria. "We're coordinating with the Lebanese Red Cross and government through an emergency committee," said one UAERC official, adding that numerous essential items were still required.

The emirate of Abu Dhabi pledged an additional US $20 million to the effort, while King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia sent US $50 million to Lebanon for emergency aid.

DAY 6, By Joel Greenberg, Tribune foreign correspondent, Israeli warplanes continued their onslaught on the Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut, reducing apartment buildings to rubble and knocking out power in wide areas. The army said it warned residents of seven villages near the border with Israel to vacate their homes before a heavy assault. Hezbollah militants fired volleys of rockets at Israel's third-largest city Sunday, killing eight people and wounding more than 20 in the worst single attack in Israel in five days of widening conflict with the Lebanese guerrilla group. Waves of Israeli air strikes across Lebanon killed at least 28 people.

The death toll since Wednesday was believed to exceed 200. Most of those killed have been civilians, and most have been Lebanese.The rocket attacks on Haifa emptied the streets of the port city of 270,000. Residents hunkered down in their homes and took cover in bombproof rooms and shelters as sirens warned of missile strikes. Pedestrians ran for cover as the sirens wailed, and motorists stopped their cars beneath overpasses. Pls click READ MORE to view more pictures, and click on news archive to view pictures of day1 and day2.