Last July war - experience?

Question

Here is my experience, tell me where were you when the war broke out, and what did you do?

We live in Chicago. I took my kids to see their grandparents, in ras Beirut and the war broke out. We got stuck and could not return to the US.

We escaped to Jounieh while Beirut was being bombed. stayed at the hotel next to where the Israelis bombed. So we escaped to Broumana which was packed and the prices went sky high. We then waited until the American embassy got their act together and got us out on a cruise ship to Cyprus, then on a charted plane to Baltimore in US. We bought our own tickets and flew to Chicago.

Quite an exprience for my children...now they saw what we went through when we were kids living in Lebanon during the Lebanese wars.

What is your story?

Answer 1

My family and I went to Lebanon June 22,2006. We soon realized that there was a war going on. We were so scared. We stayed at my grandparents' house in Tripoli and they tried to calm us down saying that it the Israels could not bomb us cuz we were very far away from Beirut. We watched the news everyday and we became even more scared cuz we found out that they were making their way up north. July 16 seemed like a normal day until at about 1:00PM we hear this incredibally loud sound-the loudest i ever heard in my life. We realized that the israels bombed a part of Tripoli. Soon we heard the sound again and i was scared to death. We also had a problem with the tickets so we had no idea when and if we'd get back to the u.s. Many days went by and we found out that they stopped bombing Tripoli. Soon we were able to fix the problem with the tickets and we escaped to Syria when 2 generous men offered to drive us there. We stayed there for 3 day and then we then we took a plane to Jordan where we stayed there for only a few hours and then we took another plane to New York. We were extremely thankful to escape safefully with no problems. Were happy to be home and were glad that the conflict in Lebanon has been settled.

Answer 2

I was home when I turned on LBC and saw that the airport was hit...we were scared cuz it's not like when we were kids, we didn't care...I had my own kids now and was afraid they would get hurt.
A few days later when Beirut, Saida and Sour were being bombarded non-stop I said to myself this is serious...we stayed home watching TV most of the time except when we had to go buy food or take the kids for a spin cuz they were bored to death.
One time we were in the car near the Jounieh port to take the children for a drive and the helicopters started bombing Jounieh port and my kids got scared and so did we...my 5 year old (he was 4 at the time) still freaks out when he sees a plane or a helicopter.
One more thing my kids don't understand is why they can't go play in downtown Beirut anymore like they used to...they asked me if there's still a war and I said no, so they can't understand why they can't go there.

Answer 3

I was in the US and I saw a quick blip on the news about the airport being bombed and I thought 'this isn't good..." I worked in Lebanon in 1997, and was working back in the region during the Iraq crisis so it was just very painful to watch from afar since I am close to many people in the region (although I am not Lebanese or any other ethnicity/religion from the region). At work, I was put on a Lebanon crisis response team -- meetings, telecons, emergency appeals, etc.but I was glued to the tv screen as much as I could. I can't believe it even happened...I guess the silver lining is that it inspired to take Arabic language classes again.

Answer 4

First off I want to say that I am so thankful I'm able to share my story with other people of the Lebanese community on Yahoo answers. Hopefully we'll all be here to answer each other's questions always.

When my family and I went to Lebanon, little did we know what was to become of our beloved country. We went there and two weeks later this all started happening. Thank God, we were in Tripoli, which was far away from the bombings, but we still saw the smoke, heard the frightening bombings. I had very little sleep. My mom and I feared what was to happen next. My sisters were crying everyday from watching the sad news on tv. We had my uncle and aunt with us, so we didn't feel alone. We, too, were going to take the Cyprus route, because we had little other options. But because of the expected difficulties we may have faced, we decided not to go thru Cyprus. We originally wanted to leave August 31, but we were forced to leave August 1st thru the Syria airport, since the Beirut airport was unfortunately bombed. It was my uncle, his wife, his daughter, my mom, my sisters, and I. We traveled to Syria, and stayed in a hotel there. My mom tried to make us happy by letting us go shopping and eat delicious foods in Syria, but the bad thoughts were still in our heads. Then we went to Jordan, where we stayed overnight waiting for the next day's flight. Thank God, we made it here, to America.

As I said in my previous question (is it safe to go to Lebanon?), I love it there so much, and because of the bombings, we did not stay for as long as we wished. If God wills, we will go this summer, and spend our summer with no danger going on, hopefully.

Answer 5

I was in Beirut at that time when they bombed the airport so I thought it was a technical accident which happened in the airport. Then I knew the war started so I went straight to the American Embassy and I did the same, I went to Cyprus with a heart broken.

My business got worst since July/August War, I made downsizing in my company. I even had to fire a driver with 12 children. Business didn't improve because of all the stupid politicians fighting and they forgot that WE are the main thing in Lebanon. I also hate it when people follow their leader (I don't care which side they are with) and destroy their country. As the opposition now is doing it is making our business late and distracting investors.

Answer 6

I was in Beirut but the day they bombed the airport, which was July 12, my family took us to the mountains where we stayed until the end of the war. After that we came back to Beirut but went on a month-long vacation to the US because we deserved it after living through hell for over a month. Thank you Nasrallah :)

Answer 7

Well when the war broke out,i was still in Lebanon Tripoli for 1 week,my parents decided to stay were we were,cuz here in Tripoli nothin much happened!
So after 1 week,we got a call from my uncle from Syria that my Grandma passed away!!(No my uncle is not Syrian)
Ofcourse my Father wanted to go alone,but he couldnt leave us behind with all that boming,so we packed all our clothes and traveled to Syria!!
So after 1 week in Syria we decided to come back to Lebanon,but we couldnt cuz the war got worser and the street back to Tripoli was bombed and destroyed!
So we end up renting a house in Syria for 2 months!

Answer 8

The first thing I did was buy like 100000000000 liters of gasoline and store it in our house. My mother started yelling once she saw the gasoline entering. Of course I ignored the yelling and continued packing them inside.

By the first night, it was obvious that the gasoline turned out to be trouble cause of the smell lol. I had to move them into a bathroom we don't use and seal it well so that the smell doesn't propagate to other parts of the house.

Mom continued nagging about them throughout the whole 33 days. I kept telling her that she was deluded by the smell which I claimed that it didn't exist.

As for me, I was able to watch the dahyeh from our balcony, so I mostly spent the time watching it get bombed. I also was "fortunate" to watch the airport getting bombed live. Of course mom was also yelling "FOOT LA JOUWAAH WLA!!"

The most wild scene was when they bombed the fuel in the ariport! Ah what a scene! It was like blueish fireworks which you will never see in your whole life. I also watched that live!!

After a week or so, I learned to tell which areas were getting bombed before news agencies did.

Thank You.

Answer 9

No, death seems much greater exciting, or somewhat life seems much greater exciting than a conflict. ******* psychotic species. You never learn, and why do no longer I ever learn? Why do no longer I? am i able to no longer concentration on the rest? lacking lots mind's eye...the only factor rather left is to whipe out the excellent species. If that's what they rather want, there is not any longer the rest left to adventure, replicate on under the solar, and we've been given some distance too many examples of our stupidity and have not discovered something from it. I somewhat have life and peace, than yet another conflict. we'd rather start to learn something as a species and not proceed on the point of a ape .

Answer 10

Well.....I didnt pass through that experience because i stayed in Lebanon for 2 months, and left it 1 month before the war.
Anyways...when my family from Lebanon called me to say that they were fine and our village havent been bombed...I couldnt believe what have happened.
Just one month before everything was calm....and one month later, some of the nicer places were destroyed.
I havent been in the south in my previous trips...so...this last time i decided to go to qanaa , bent jbeil, ain ebel, maroun er ras. aaitaroun, and all along the israelian border, and I did it.
Oh my God....when I saw the pics of Bent Jbeil....I couldnt believe that this was the beautiful zone i have visited and where i took nice pics.
Being here......the only thing i could do was to help in any way...so i started working inmediatelly for humanitary help for Lebanon