WASHINGTON (AP) – About 250 Americans and their relatives left Lebanon on U.S.-arranged flights this week, but remain in the country as fighting escalates between Israel and Hezbollah. Thousands of people are facing airstrikes and fewer commercial flights.
In Washington, State Department and White House officials met with two senior Arab American officials on Thursday to discuss U.S. efforts to help American citizens leave Lebanon. The two leaders also met separately with officials from the Department of Homeland Security.
Representative Arabas Farhat of Michigan and Abed Ayoub, executive director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, used the meeting at the White House to raise awareness of the issues that local residents are facing on the ground and the current situation. We are facing many logistical challenges regarding evacuation,” Ayub said.
Some officials and community leaders in Michigan, home to the nation’s largest concentration of Arab Americans, have called on the United States to begin evacuations. Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said such a thing is not being considered at this time.
“The U.S. military is of course prepared and has extensive plans. If we need to evacuate American citizens from Lebanon, we absolutely can do that,” Singh told reporters. She added: “We are not commanded to do so.”
Israel has stepped up airstrikes and launched a ground invasion into southern Lebanon targeting Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant leaders. Iran fired nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday, raising fears that the attacks could escalate and lead to a full-scale regional war.
Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire almost daily across the Lebanese border since the day after Hamas, another Iranian-backed militant group, attacked Israel on October 7, sparking the Gaza war.
Other countries, from Greece to Britain to Japan to Colombia, are arranging flights or sending military aircraft to transport their citizens.
A family in the United States is mourning Kamel Ahmad Jawad, a resident of the Dearborn area of metro Detroit. He was killed in southern Lebanon on Tuesday after allegedly staying there to help prevent the evacuation of elderly, frail and poor civilians.
Her daughter Nadine Kamel Jawad said in a statement that she was on the phone with her daughter on Tuesday when the strike left her stranded.
“He just told me I needed to get up, find my phone and finish my prayers in case he attacked me again,” she said.
For almost a year, the State Department has urged Americans not to travel to Lebanon and for months advised them to fly out of the country on commercial flights. It also provided emergency loans to help people travel outside Lebanon, while making it clear that government-led evacuations are rare.
Some Americans said their relatives, either American citizens or green card holders, have been struggling for days or even weeks to secure seats on flights departing from Lebanon. They say Lebanon’s years of economic collapse and intermittent power and internet have made it difficult to withdraw money from banks.
Rebecca Abu-Chedid, a lawyer in Washington, said she paid $5,000 to put a female relative in the back seat of a plane departing Beirut on Saturday.
“She was on her way to the airport,” Abu-Chedid said Thursday, when Israeli forces began the first day of intensified bombing.
Jenna Shami, a Lebanese-American living in Dearborn, Michigan, said American citizens and green card holders in her family contacted the U.S. embassy after airstrikes forced some from their lodgings in Lebanon. He said he was having a hard time.
She said her family had been trying for weeks to secure a seat on a commercial plane, but faced soaring ticket prices and cancellations.
The U.S. embassy offered a loan for a charter flight, but the Americans were unable to find a plane to hire on their own, she said.
Shami and his family, a Lebanese-American veteran from Texas, said their loved ones just got tickets for the next flight and are hopeful.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the United States will continue to arrange flights as long as the security situation in Lebanon is dire and there is demand.
Miller said Lebanon’s flag carrier, Middle East Airlines, also secured about 1,400 seats for Americans in the past week. Hundreds of people took them, he said.
Miller could not discuss the cost of the company’s flights because they are not subject to U.S. government regulatory oversight, but said the maximum fare charged for U.S.-sponsored contract flights would be $283 per person. said.
More than 6,000 American citizens contacted the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in the past week seeking information about leaving the country.
Not all of them are actually seeking assistance leaving the country, and Miller said some Americans, many of whom have dual U.S.-Lebanese citizenship and have lived in Lebanon for years, may choose to remain. The ministry said it understands that there is.
Miller said the embassy is prepared to provide temporary loans to Americans who choose to remain in Lebanon but wish to relocate to safer areas of the country. The embassy will also provide emergency loans to Americans who wish to leave the country on U.S.-contracted flights.
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Mr. Cappelletti contributed from Saginaw, Michigan. Associated Press writers Tara Kopp and Lolita C. Bardo contributed from Washington.
