MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A mother with her children from Broward County was on her way back home from Israel to Hollywood on Monday at Miami International Airport.
The bombs from Gaza reached Tel Aviv, and the pain of war tainted her family’s joyful Jewish holiday celebrations. She said her children were in Israel for the first time, so they had never hidden in bunkers before.
The family’s flight arrived at MIA just before major airlines suspended flights in and out of Israel. The U.S. State Department issued travel advisories for the region and reported at least nine U.S. citizens were killed and at least six had vanished.
The attack that started Saturday had killed over 700 people in Israel by Sunday night. And on Monday, Hamas fired more rockets that set off sirens in Tel Aviv again and there was smoke near Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv.
At MIA, an Israeli-American veteran arriving from Tel Aviv started to sing and dance with a fellow traveler and said it all felt like “a dream” since he and his wife had “never experienced these kinds of things.
The veteran said it brought him back to his days of service with the Israeli defense force, now leading the charge to rescue the dozens of hostages Hamas took.
“I hear sirens. I didn’t know what happened, so I put clothes on. I was shy because I was invited to someone’s home. I put my clothes on very quickly, and then we were on the way to the shelter,” he said.
The Israeli-American man the veteran had been dancing with said he and his family “went into the bunker and there were, you know, bombs coming into Israel.
“The buildings were shaking.”
A senior with his wife said they were all very fortunate to have made it out of Tel Aviv and back to South Florida after the attack that killed hundreds in Israel.
“We got to the airport last night and it was eerie. The roads were quiet, he said. “There were security checks on the way to the airport.”
Another man who said he was still shaken by the traumatic experience stood in front of reporters to say that the attackers had committed war crimes against Israel.
“Raping women in a war is a war crime; killing innocent children is a war crime,” he said. “They had no reason to do it; there is no humanity whatsoever.”
Many told the harrowing stories of other survivors. Arik Nani from Tel Aviv told the Associated Press that he had to run and hide to survive the massacre at the music festival.
“For a country where everyone in these circles knows everyone, this is a trauma like I could never imagine,” Nani said.
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a televised address after a third day of heavy airstrikes in Gaza.
“We have only started striking Hamas. What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations,” Netanyahu said.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres expressed concerns about the safety of civilians in Israel and Gaza and condemned the Hamas attack.
Gaza’s health officials reported the Israeli response to the attack had killed over 680, including women and children and 19 members of the same family in a refugee camp, The Associated Press reported.
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