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  • Stranded in Beirut

    Stranded in Beirut

    Los Angeles Daily News, CA
    July 19 2006

    Valley-area residents wait to escape war zone BY LISA VAN PROYEN,
    Special to the Daily News

    BEIRUT - With thunderous bomb blasts shaking the buildings, Glendale
    resident George Kesablak spent Tuesday at the U.S. Embassy, sweltering
    in the heat and worrying about when his family would escape the war
    zone. "I'm here every day - 9 to 5, `working' - just like in the
    States, huh? Working 9 to 5, waiting for the boat, the rescue. We
    have to be home.

    "I have my family, my child and my business."

    Kesablak, an agent at a Verizon retail store in Van Nuys, and his
    family were among more than 100 Americans who swarmed the embassy
    in Awkar, about 10 miles northeast of Beirut, hoping to escape the
    escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

    Another American citizen, Suzy Ayzoukian, 35, who moved eight years
    ago from Woodland Hills to Rabieh, Lebanon, was among those at the
    embassy, pleading to be evacuated to safety.

    "There's just no information. They're taking their time," she said
    of the U.S. government, which came under fierce criticism Tuesday
    for its evacuation effort.

    Ayzoukian fled Lebanon during a civil war in 1984. She lived in
    Woodland Hills before returning to the Mideast in 1998.

    With the battle escalating between Israel and the Hezbollah guerrillas,
    she plans to return to Woodland Hills to live near her parents.

    "Our building is shaking" under the pounding of Israeli airstrikes,
    she said. "It was so unexpected and it's really not fair. The people
    are suffering and it's not right."

    Born and raised in Beirut, Kesablak left Lebanon 28 years ago during
    an earlier civil war. His family sought refuge in Kuwait, then moved
    to Glendale 25 years ago.

    This year, he and his wife, Maral, 39, decided to return to his
    homeland with their 3-year-old, Grace, for a five-day family visit.

    "I wanted to see the city because people said it's beautiful here,"
    said Maral, an Armenian who was raised a Christian and grew up
    peacefully in Israel.

    "But now it's shocking. My daughter cries all the time. You hear
    the blasts.

    "It stresses you out. I will never come back here."

    Of the airstrikes pounding nearby, Kesablak said: "I tell my daughter
    it's the rain, the lightning."

    The Kesablaks arrived July 11, the day before unrest began. They
    checked into a comfortable hotel, visited a nightclub, ate falafel
    and shawarma at local restaurants and basked in the hospitality of
    the Lebanese people.

    "It was awesome. Everybody is happy. We have a nice hotel, nice people
    around us. Then, everything changed suddenly," said Kesablak, 42.

    By their second day, the relentless bombardment began. Kesablak's
    hotel shakes with each bomb dropped near Beirut. Car alarms ring
    through the night.

    Beirut International Airport was among the first sites to be hit,
    stranding some 25,000 Americans.

    "We started hearing the bombs. That's something new for us," he said.
    "We were very, very scared. The hotel staff said, `It's no problem."'

    Kesablak went immediately to the U.S. Embassy, where he and other
    Americans are routinely told through fliers and e-mails: "The embassy
    is monitoring the situation in Lebanon closely and is reviewing all
    options for assisting Americans who wish to depart Lebanon."

    At the embassy Tuesday afternoon, an American official repeatedly
    informed those desperately wanting to leave that help was on the way,
    but that "negotiations" among the American, Israeli and Lebanese
    governments are in force to assure safe passage by ship to Cypress.

    Some Americans instead opted to take back roads to Damascus, which
    the embassy reported via Internet are "subject to an airstrike at
    any time."

    Friends are helping Kesablak book a one-way flight from Cypress to
    Kuwait - a flight that ordinarily costs him and his family $1,000 will
    now cost $5,000. From Kuwait, they will travel back to Los Angeles.

    "We don't know why this is happening, but we know we're caught in it
    and we cannot leave. For us, it's very, very scary. I just want to
    go home," Kesablak said, adding a plea to the American government:

    "Help get us out of here. What's going to happen? What if a bomb
    hits us?"
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