SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Christina Dahro spent the past month in Lebanon visiting her father, who retired there. She grew up in the Bay Area and visited Lebanon every summer as a child.
But following the recent escalation in Israeli attacks, she’s stuck.
“I have seen the unimaginable. I have seen things that you only hear on the news or see in the movies. I don’t believe I am actually living it. We have Israeli war jets flying over house,” says Dahro.
Dahro was supposed to return to home to San Jose last Friday. But her was flight canceled following Israeli’s assassination of Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrullah, and the subsequent Israeli airstrikes into Beirut. She says the Biden administration has done nothing to help stranded Americans
“I’m getting updates on my iPhone. ‘America is doing everything they can to get out their American citizens.’ That’s not true!” she says.
Dahro is in Lebanon with her brother, who lives in the East Bay. They called and emailed the U.S. Embassy. She says they were given few options: Stay in Lebanon. Or find their own flight out.
“Biden, three days ago, said he was going to bring ships here. He backed out two days ago. We are literally stranded here! We know so many American here, there is no way for us to get out!” she says.
Then there is the risk of just getting to the airport in the south of Beirut close to the military operation.
“Literally, Dahieh, the area Israel is bombing, is the airport. I just got a notification on my phone – Israel asking people in that region to evacuate. That’s the only way to get out! It’s terrifying,” she explains.
MORE: Iran fires at least 180 missiles into Israel as regionwide conflict grows
But Dahro knows the window to get out is also closing. Lebanon’s caretaker government is operating without a president and stumbling through a severe economic crisis, and will likely struggle to respond to the Israeli invasion. Some political analysts see Hezbollah as the first line of defense. But it has been weakened, many say, following the killing of Nasrallah.
“The majority of the Lebanese are very scared because now we feel like there is no protection. And now they can come take our country,” says Dahro. “This was our last line of defense, to keep Lebanon. So, what is happening in Gaza is also starting to happen here.”
As such, Dahro paid $2,000 for a one-hour flight to Cairo – documenting the destruction on the road to the Beirut airport on social media.
Several later hours, she contacted ABC7 News after arriving in Cairo.
“I have no words. I knew what I was going into. But I have never been more scared in my life,” Dahro says from Cairo.
MORE: Hezbollah confirms its leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike
She says she still trying to process what she’s been through.
Her flight may have been one of the last flights out of Lebanon. Since landing in Egypt, Iran has launched unprecedented retaliatory missiles at Israel, saying it was in response to Israel’s assassinations of top leaders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hamas and Hezbollah.
With the threat of a greater regional war, she has decided to stay in Cairo in case the rest of her family tries to evacuate as well.
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