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Locals struggle to escape Lebanon

A mother and son finally get home to Tampa on a Navy ship, while a father and daughter from St. Petersburg are promised a helicopter today.

By ROBIN STEIN
Published July 24, 2006

In the past week, more than 11,000 Americans have been evacuated from Lebanon, but the Anani family has not been among them.

It has been a harrowing wait for Fadia Anani, 24, a St. Petersburg High School graduate, and father Zakaria, 73, who uses a wheelchair.

They are among the throngs of civilians in Lebanon caught in the firefight between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters.

Americans evacuating the region have had a tougher time than most, said Ahmed Bedier, the Tampa director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Bedier said his group and Sen. Bill Nelson's office have been helping facilitate the homecoming of about 100 Tampa Bay area residents stuck in Lebanon during the past week.

"They didn't actually start evacuating people until Wednesday or Thursday, when most of the other Western nations had already evacuated people," Bedier said.

After the late start, the U.S. Embassy's transport operation lacked organization and leadership, Bedier said, leaving about 25,000 U.S. nationals to negotiate the chaos in search of a way home.

"The embassy was telling people to register names and stay put until it contacts them," he said.

But electricity and phone service have been spotty because of damage from Israeli attacks, he said.

Bedier said his group was contacted by between 80 and 100 Tampa Bay area residents in Lebanon looking for help in getting home. CAIR enlisted the help of Nelson's staff.

On Sunday afternoon, Bedier estimated that about 80 percent of local people that his group was tracking have made it home or were en route.

Those who made it described a grueling journey - beginning with hourslong waits in scorching heat and mobs of evacuees at the port in Beirut scrambling for a spot aboard ships bound for Cyprus.

Pilar Saad, 52, a social studies teacher at Universal Academy of Florida, a private Muslim school in eastern Hillsborough County, said she was one of the lucky ones.

Saad and her 17-year-old son, Jamal, returned to Tampa on Saturday night, the culmination of a trip that began Wednesday.

The family traveled to Lebanon to celebrate the wedding of Saad's daughter Joumana, 20, on June 23.

Saad said her husband, Muhieddine, 52, and oldest daughter, Layelle, 23, left Lebanon on July 1 to get back to their jobs, but she and Jamal stayed for an extended vacation.

On July 11, Saad said, she was enjoying a day at the beach. It was the height of tourist season, the fervor of the World Cup soccer tournament was still fresh, the country was in a festive mood.

The next day, though, chaos broke loose.

Looking out from her relative's 10th-floor apartment in Beirut, Saad said, they heard the planes coming toward them and darted down 10 flights of stairs to the basement and stayed there most of the day.

"I was so worried about how the hell I was going to get out of there," she said.

They called the U.S. Embassy daily, who said to keep checking back and keep an eye on media reports.

Finally, news broke that the evacuation would begin, so the Saads made their way to the port.

"It was horrendous. There were so many people. Thousands of people were there, and it was disorganized," Saad said.

After waiting in the sun for seven hours, they could not get onto the ship, Saad said.

That night, Saad got a phone call at 4 a.m.

It was Sen. Nelson's office calling, saying staffers had made sure that she would get on the U.S. Navy ship leaving Thursday.

Later that day, she and her son began a 15-hour, three-continent trip home: from Beirut to Cyprus to Milan to New York and, ultimately, to Tampa.

There was no such escape for Fadia and Zakaria Anani, who are still in Beirut.

State Department officials said as of 3 p.m. Sunday, the United States had transported 11,260 Americans out of Lebanon, and 2,800 more were scheduled to depart today.

At home in St. Petersburg, the rest of the Anani family is optimistic that Fadia and Zakaria will be among them.

"As far as I know, (today) they are going to be traveling from Lebanon to Cyprus via helicopter," Wally Anani, 36, said Sunday afternoon.

Anani, who along with his brother Sami, owns downtown property, including the Palm Bay Hotel, said it has been difficult to communicate with his father and sister, taking about six hours to get a line.

And matters were further complicated by his father, a local fixture at Seven Food Mart, the convenience store at 64th Street and Central Avenue that he owned until a stroke in 2001.

"My father is basically a vegetable," Wally Anani said.

He said his father was in Beirut to get treatment for leukemia since about a year ago and was joined by daughter Fadia last winter after she finished her master's degree in international business at Florida State University. Their initial evacuation plan was to take a boat like the Saads.

"They had to rearrange it, because when they went, it will take 6 to 10 hours to get on the boat in the sun, and Dad cannot handle this," Anani said.

He said his sister told him that the embassy promised a helicopter today.

"You don't know what happens from the house to the embassy," he said. "I have to be patient - and just wait because I'm not there and our hands are tied.

"We believe in one thing. If it's your time, it's your time ... everything is in God's hands."

[Last modified July 24, 2006, 05:24:11]