US arranges flights to bring Americans out of Lebanon as others seek escape

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Scripps News/AP

Posted 8:00 AM, Oct 04, 2024


U.S.-arranged flights have brought about 250 Americans and their relatives out of Lebanon this week during escalated fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, while thousands of others still there face airstrikes and diminishing commercial flights.

In Washington, senior State Department and White House officials met Thursday with two top Arab American officials to discuss U.S. efforts to help American citizens leave Lebanon. The two leaders also separately met with officials from the Department of Homeland Security.

Michigan state Rep. Alabas Farhat and Abed Ayoub, executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, used the White House meeting to "really drive home a lot of important points about the issues our community members are facing on the ground and a lot of the logistical problems that they’re encountering with it when it comes to this evacuation,” Ayoub said.

Some officials and community leaders in Michigan, home to the nation’s largest concentration of Arab Americans, are calling on the U.S. to start an evacuation. Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said that was not being considered right now.

Read more: https://www.scrippsnews.com/world/israel-at-war/us-arranges-flights-to-bring-americans-out-of-lebanon-as-others-seek-escape

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Canada has been doing the same thing, but like this report (only 250) many seats going empty

Canada has about 20,000 nationals in Lebanon, so US must have 180,000, maybe more. If only 250 Americans have left in a week, that is less than two tenths of 1 %.

Canada has been booking hundreds of seats on flights out, but most are going empty.