Escaping the horror

The majority of my summer was spent in Cyprus doing freelance photo work, primarily covering the U.N. involvement on the island with a good friend of mine from Sarah Lawrence College. Being so close to Lebanon, we decided to end our two months in Cyprus with a trip across the sea to the small country. It was to be mostly just a vacation, but I was also planning on doing some photo work with the U.N. peacekeepers in the south of Lebanon.

Our flight from Cyprus left July 12. I arranged for a car to pick us up from the Beirut airport, and on our drive to our hotel the driver told us about the city and the people. Needless to say, I was excited to be in the city. After checking into our hotel – a small-budget place just a block from where Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated last year – my friend and I walked down to the sea along a long paved sidewalk called the Corniche.

Walking along the Corniche, we were greeted with a cacophony of car horns. It seemed as though every other car had a yellow flag waving from it while the passengers cheered on. A closer look revealed the flag, with its signature AK-47 rifle, was that of Hezbollah. After returning to our hotel, we were woken from a nap by a call from my friend’s father, who told us Israel had invaded southern Lebanon.

We watched CNN and BBC closely to figure out what was going on. Slowly we gleaned bits of information from the mess of coverage and began to evaluate our situation. Should we stay? This Hezbollah action and the Israeli retaliation were completely out of the blue to us. Many of the local Lebanese believed it would be done in a matter of days, but I didn’t believe it. After a great deal of deliberation, we decided it was best to get out of there. If it blows over, we can always come back, I thought. We booked tickets on the first flight back to Cyprus the next morning.

The following morning, we rose early and arranged for a car from the hotel. Being a small establishment, the hotel manager got his brother to take us. As we took our bags from the car at Beirut’s international airport, we heard automatic gun fire in the distance. “Great, no trip to Lebanon is complete without some nearby gunfire,” I said to my friend.

Inside, we were waiting at the check-in counter when the ground shook with three loud explosions. Israeli jets were bombing the airport. All lights were canceled. There was nowhere for us to go. We werescared and had no idea what the next step was. I called the U.S. embassy, but they weren’t even open. I called our hotel back, and the generous manager told us he would try and sort something out for us as quickly as possible.

We went outside, and it was oddly quiet. The arrivals terminal should have been packed, but only a few people were there. Finally, we saw the manager and his driver coming for us.

“I was driving back after I left you, and the bomb went off 200 meters from my car,” the driver told me. “I knew I couldn’t leave you there. I tried to get back as soon as I could.”

This hospitality would become a strong theme for the coming events. Without the help of the Lebanese people, there is no way we would have made it back.

At the hotel, I spoke with friends I had at the Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press. My friend and I headed to the AP bureau in Beirut. As we formulated our next course of action, we watched pictures and reports come in from the south, where towns were being attacked by the Israeli Defense Forces. Soon, we learned Israel had blockaded the ports. There was no sea exit.

Our only choice was to leave by bus through Syria. The nearest airport was to the east of Beirut in Damascus, Syria.

The news started to get worse. Israel was threatening to bomb the road to Damascus, wanting to isolate Lebanon. The U.S. embassy told us it would be wise for us to leave but could give us no advice. It was clear we needed to go, though. Israel already cut off the air and sea. The roads were next.

Our biggest concern was Syria. They don’t like to give visas to Americans and pretty much deny it if you ask at the border. We hoped that, maybe as refugees, we could get through, but we were worried. After speaking with The Washington Post Mideast correspondent Anthony Shadid, we learned our best option was to get a 24-hour transit visa, and even those were difficult to get at the border. We just had to cross our fingers.

That night, we went to sleep but were awoken by more bombs. The blasts were only a five-minute drive from the area we were living in. It was a horrible feeling, and we were absolutely helpless at that point in the night. After a particularly loud blast, we heard people across the hall come out of their room. The man, an American, and the woman, a Czech, were both archaeologists in the area on a grant. They had done work in Syria and Jordan and now were in Lebanon. We all decided we had to leave immediately. I called a very generous friend from the AP who told me the road to Damascus had been destroyed. That left only one road out. We needed to get to Tripoli, the northernmost city in Lebanon, pass into Syria and head to Turkey.

With our two new friends, we left the hotel and said good-bye to our friends who rescued us from the airport. We got on a bus and were the only Americans on board. The bus would take us through Tripoli into Syria, finally stopping at the northern Syrian city of Aleppo.

As the drive went along, we developed a sort of camaraderie with the other riders, even though there was a language barrier. My friend spoke some Arabic but was not fluent. Finally, we arrived at the border, but we needed to pass through the Lebanese exit point. The customs house was packed with people trying to escape. So many were pushing, shoving and shouting to get their passports stamped. The checkpoint was clearly filled beyond its capacity. Luckily, one of the Lebanese travelers from our bus helped us have our documents checked. We got our exit stamp and began to move toward the Syrian entry point. Things were about to get a lot worse.

We arrived at the Syrian border, which had more people packed into a smaller space. It felt like it was 200 degrees in the room. Our two archaeologist friends had visas from Syria already, since they had just been there. They got their passports checked and stamped relatively easy. My friend and I took our passports and pushed through the hundreds of people to the window. I handed them through and watched as they sat on the counter. Finally, a customs officer picked them up. I felt relief.

“No Americans!” he shouted and threw them back.

Unsure of what to do next, we just gave them to another official. He took mercy on us and gave us a small sheet of paper with some Arabic writing on it.

“Bank!” he shouted at us. “Visa! Bank!” We left and found a small bank, where we changed some American dollars into Syrian pounds and were able to purchase the transit visas we needed. We returned to the checkpoint and finally got the stamps we needed.

This ordeal took more than two hours and the bus with our baggage on it was nowhere to be seen. The other members from our bus had finished hours ago – we were convinced they left us at the border. As we walked through the checkpoint, we saw the bus farther up the road. Someone who was on it recognized us and waved. As we boarded, everyone started to cheer. Other travelers patted us on the back and shook our hands. “Nice to see you,” one person said in broken English with a big grin. Seeing our bus there was probably one of the best sights I’ve seen in my life. My faith in the people of Lebanon is completely unwavering after this experience.

We got to Aleppo and negotiated a taxi into Turkey. We took it to a small city near the Syrian border called Antakya. After leaving Syria, an immense sense of relief passed over me, but so did fear. I feared for all those whom we left behind, all those who made sacrifices to help us find safety.

We spent a night in Antakya and the following morning left for the city of Adana, which had an airport with international flights. On our way, we met an American family also leaving Lebanon. They had moved to Beirut from California eight months ago to be closer to the husband’s family. Their two daughters were ages 4 and 6 and began holding us for comfort. As we spoke to the family, we found out they had to leave everything there, including the husband’s mother. All they had were two small suitcases containing some of their clothing. They were flying back to California to start again.

We boarded a flight to Frankfurt, Germany, and from there we returned to the United States. It’s a relief to be back here, but there isn’t a minute that goes by that I don’t think of what we experienced and what it must be like now for those still there. When we got back, we called our Lebanon hotel to see how they were doing.

“We are fine,” the manager told us, “but it is getting very dangerous here. We are glad you made it out. I am very happy to hear your voice. Please don’t forget about us.”

Mike Frantel is The Diamondback’s photo editor. He can be reached at photo@dbk.umd.edu.