Brit fleeing Lebanon warzone describes fear of 'missiles coming towards me' as families touch down at Heathrow
2 October 2024, 16:22 | Updated: 2 October 2024, 16:24
A Brit among the Lebanese duel-nationals fleeing Beirut has described the constant fear of 'a missile coming towards me' after government-chartered aircraft delivered families back to the UK.
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
Families touching down at Heathrow Airport on Tuesday detailed the "terrifying" journey out of Beirut where missiles were landing "left, right and centre".
Lara - a 19-year-old who chose not to give her last name - was among many of those who were reuited with her family on Tuesday after being split up during the urgent scramble out of Lebanon amid Israeli forces' "limited" incursion north of its border during the conflict with Hezbollah.
The teen and her grandmother in her 90s who travelled with her were greeted by mother Solange and 13-year-old brother Ali, who came back from Lebanon on Saturday.
Asked about her journey to the airport, she said: “It was terrifying, I didn’t know if I was going to make it.
"People in Lebanon have said goodbye to me in a way they shouldn’t. Like they will never see me again.
"Whenever I hear a bang I think it’s a missile coming towards me."
Read More: Israeli military warns people to evacuate another 50 villages in south Lebanon
She added that some people were struggling to afford to pay for flights out of Lebanon at short notice amid reports some tickets were more than £2,000. On Monday, the Government announced it had chartered a flight out of Lebanon for Britons wanting to leave.
Asked if the Foreign Office was doing enough, she said: “No, it’s disgusting.”
Lara’s brother, Ali, said of his journey: “I was at risk of losing my life. There were rockets left, right and centre."
Ali told the PA news agency that he “couldn’t sleep” in Lebanon because the drones were flying so low. "It was like having a fly in your ear," he added.
Their mother Solange said: "We lost a lot of family and friends last week. Some of them are still under the rubble."
Talking about her children, she said: "It’s so sad that at that age they’ve seen so much. They saw the Port of Beirut explosion. But nothing will stop them going back.
"My daughter said she would be happy to die if they bomb the airport."
A 60-year-old United Nations worker said the situation in Lebanon is the worst he has seen in the 13 years he has worked there.
The man, who did not want to be named, arrived in the UK having retired from his job as planned. He said explosions and shelling have significantly increased over the last few weeks in the city of Tyre where he was working.
"It’s rough, lots of civilian areas have been hit," he said. "I’ve not seen this intensity before, it’s bad.
"Some have moved away from Tyre to Beirut further from the border. But people are stoic," he added.
Philip, 28 - a British citizen who did not wish to share his surname - also described his "instant relief" watching his mother’s flight back to the UK take off from Lebanon after a late-night escape filled with the sound of explosions.
His mother Rita, 55, said she heard bombing during her taxi ride through a southern suburb of Beirut in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Philip told PA that he woke up at 2am and spoke with his mother for two hours as she took the hour-long trip to Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport for a commercial flight back to London Heathrow.
He said she had to travel through a "dangerous" part of the country for about 20 minutes and Philip heard his mother "panicking" at the sounds of bombing in the distance.
"I heard her say, 'oh my God, I’ve heard something' and the taxi driver saying, 'stay calm' – so that was worrying, but it became clear that it was relatively at a distance," he said.
"In my mind for the last five days, I was like 'we just need to be lucky, we just need a 20 minute window for us to be lucky and for her to get out'.
"I appreciate many civilians are not lucky to have flights but this is my mum and I need her out of there.
"I was kind of relieved when she entered the airport building, because it was my hope that that was sort of an off-limit place where there’d be some international co-ordination not to bomb the airport.”
Philip tracked his mother’s Middle East Airlines flight using a tracking website. He later confirmed that the flight arrived at Heathrow at 11.15am on Wednesday. Reflecting on the moment he watched his mother’s flight begin to ascend, he said: “I felt instant relief.”
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has said: “FCDO continues to advise against all travel to Lebanon. “If you are currently in Lebanon, we encourage you to leave, while commercial options remain available.”
