US set to bring humanitarian supplies into Lebanon

WASHINGTON, July 24 (Reuters) The United States wound down the evacuation of US citizens from Lebanon today and planned to begin bringing humanitarian supplies into that country, the Pentagon said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew to Lebanon as hostilities continued between Israeli and Hizbollah forces in the 13-day-old war.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said some combination of US Navy ships and contracted commercial vessels would deliver humanitarian supplies including medicine and blankets to non-governmental relief organizations in Lebanon.

Whitman did not say which groups would receive these supplies, when delivery would begin or the quantity of supplies planned. But he said some humanitarian supplies due to go to Lebanon were expected to be delivered to Cyprus today.

''We're going to be shifting our emphasis here from assisting in the departures to assisting in providing humanitarian relief,'' Whitman said.

The Pentagon sent nine Navy ships to be part of the evacuation efforts and last week rejected criticism that it was slow to get the evacuation under way.

The US sea and air evacuation effort had brought 11,913 US citizens out of Lebanon as of Monday morning, with another 1,200 expected to be evacuated aboard the commercial passenger ship Orient Queen on Monday, Whitman told reporters.

The State Department put the overall figure for those evacuated by the United States since July 16 at about 13,600, including about 1,000 leaving today.

The State Department said there were about 25,000 Americans in Lebanon at the start of the hostilities, and defense officials had said they were expecting to evacuate 5,000 to 8,000.

REUTERS MQA ND2306