War fears and flight cancellations in Lebanon send travelers and residents scrambling

BEIRUT — At Lebanon’s Rafic Hariri International Airport, the window has been closing for Lebanese and foreigners to fly out while they can before an expected Iranian attack on Israel which will likely expand fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in south Lebanon.

As Israeli fighter jets broke the sound barrier flying over Lebanon, as they do regularly in what is believed by most Lebanese to be an intimidation tactic, hundreds of travelers scrambled Monday to find flights after cancellations and missed connections.

Iran is expected to launch major retaliatory strikes against Israel after the killing of the top Hamas political leader in Tehran last week. Iran-backed Hezbollah has also vowed retaliation after an Israeli airstrike killed the Lebanese group’s second in command in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

In response, amid rising insurance premiums, Air France, Lufthansa and other European airlines last week announced they were stopping flights to Beirut, leaving Lebanon’s national carrier, Middle East Airlines, to try to find more planes.

“Should commercial air not be available, individuals already in Lebanon should be prepared to shelter in place for long periods of time,” Rena Bitter, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, said in a video issued by the U.S. Embassy.

The United Kingdom was more blunt, with Foreign Secretary David Lammy telling citizens in Lebanon on Saturday: “My message to British nationals there is clear — leave now.”

In 2006, when Israel invaded Lebanon and imposed an air and sea blockade, it bombed the Beirut airport. Fears rose after a report by a British newspaper that Hezbollah was stockpiling missiles at the airport, that it could be targeted again. The Lebanese government denied it, taking diplomats and journalists on a tour of the facilities. Western diplomats said there appeared to be no basis in believing there were missiles there.

In Lebanon, summer is the season of weddings and expatriates coming home for family reunions. Because of successive wars and financial crises, Lebanon has more citizens living abroad than in Lebanon.

India Smith, 29, a U.S. citizen waits with her Lebanese American fiancé Rami Bou Saab in a long line stretching from the Turkish Airways check-in counter at the airport named after Lebanon’s assassinated former prime minister.

“We wanted to leave yesterday and it got moved to today and now it’s delayed so we are missing our connecting flight from Istanbul to Chicago,” Smith said.

In Lebanon to attend a wedding, the two, both psychotherapists, said they were “deeply anxious” at the thought of not being able to get seats on the flight, despite having arrived four hours early. “We really want to get home,” Bou Saab said.

The country somehow manages to function throughout almost constant crisis and the Lebanese and long-term residents have become adept at weathering major inconveniences, such as electricity and water cuts, and the threat of danger.

Sitting on the floor near an escalator in the packed departures lounge were Elie and Dareen Nawwar and their two children. Their black suitcases were piled high on a cart as they kept the children busy with chess, snacks and a coloring book.

The Lebanese family had booked a vacation to a Turkish resort three months ago. Elie Nawwar said they looked at the departure board on arriving and watched the flight time pushed back by almost three hours in front of their eyes.

She said if their flight did not take off, they probably would give up and go home.

“We don’t know if they will target the airport,” she said, adding she wasn’t worried because threats had become normal.

“We were born under missiles and under war, it’s normal for us,” her husband laughed.

Elissa Khazzaka and her mother Odelle Khazzaka, Lebanese French, were heading to the Turkish resort town of Bodrum “for relaxation.”

They said they feel safe in Beirut and don’t know any French people who have left because they feel in danger.

Some have not had the choice — their embassies or companies forcing them to evacuate. The U.K. Embassy on the weekend announcedit was evacuating diplomatic families. The U.S., which has had heightened security in Lebanon since the bombing of Marine barracks here four decades ago, does not consider the Beirut embassy a family post.

Another passenger on Sunday, Christian missionary Winnie Oh, from South Korea, was leaving with his wife and 2-year-old son for Egypt to wait things out after warnings that war could be imminent.

“Actually our embassy is warning us to leave this country. So we are worried,” he said.

With little prospect of U.S. government evacuations, rescue groups have begun arriving in Lebanon.

Bryan Stern, an Army veteran and Navy reserve officer who is the founder of the Grey Bull Rescue Foundation, a U.S. nonprofit organization, said his group was preparing to evacuate Americans by sea or air if it became necessary.

He said his previous organization, Project Dynamo, evacuated 270 Americans from Israel after the Hamas-led attack last October, chartering a plane to fly them home when commercial flights were canceled. It also rescued a retired U.S. paratrooper from a Russian-controlled neighborhood in Ukraine.

“Usually what happens is the airspace closes and everything goes bananas right around then. We’ve seen this time and time again,” Stern said.

He said his group of U.S. military veterans works around airspace closures and other restrictions that government evacuation operations can’t, and that they have evacuated 7,000 U.S. citizens around the world, including by air from Afghanistan, Sudan and Haiti.

“We landed the first airplanes under Taliban rule and took Americans that got left behind after the military left,” he said. “And that's kind of our space. Our space is where the U.S. government isn't.”