Latest news with #DahliaBendavid
Miami Herald
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Miami woman stranded in Israel returns, says ‘I can breathe again'
Dahlia Bendavid went without birthday candles on Saturday, ringing in her 59th year aboard a flight to Vienna. The Austrian capital was not her dream locale, she confessed, but how could she not jump at the chance? Travel options are limited when attempting to flee a war zone. The Aventura woman was one of several Miamians who found themselves stranded in Israel after the country's June 13 surprise missile attack on Iran's nuclear facilities and top military officials. With retaliation from Iran hours later, the two Middle Eastern countries have spent the last 11 days in a lethal tit-for-tat that's left hundreds dead, according to the Associated Press. READ MORE: 'Oh my God, what's going on?' Miami visitors stranded as missiles target Israel Since the conflict's start, Bendavid's daily routine came to include mapping out bomb shelters near her place, creating group chats to keep tabs on other marooned South Floridians and applying for every evacuation route available to Americans. Now safely home, she admits the stress of living amid siren sounds and missile debris has yet to wear off. 'On the one hand, I feel like a weight that was on my chest has been lifted and I can breathe again,' said the 59-year-old. 'But at the same time, it's bittersweet, because I'm constantly thinking about the people there and also feel guilty about not being there.' Bendavid touched ground in Miami Sunday at 6:30 p.m. after a multi-stop route that took her through Tel Aviv, Vienna and Zurich before arriving home. Originally planning to leave Tuesday on one of Gov. Ron DeSantis four chartered jets, resourced by Tampa-based nonprofit Grey Bull Rescue, her hopes were crushed when the first group of evacuees was delayed into a three-day journey that temporarily halted other scheduled trips. READ MORE: Americans fleeing Israel fly to Tampa on flights chartered by DeSantis Leaving behind fellow South Floridians, including her coworkers from the Greater Miami Jewish Federation with whom she entered Israel two weeks before the conflict, proved tougher than her desire to make it back home. She estimates around 500 residents of Miami-Dade County are still stuck in the country based on a WhatsApp chat her team created for stranded South Floridians to stay in contact and share tips for evacuating. Bendavid's escape route was facilitated by the Jewish Agency for Israel, a partner of the nonprofit she works for, which offered to fly her group out from Ben Gurion Airport, located in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. From there, she traveled to Vienna where she overnighted before heading to Zurich and, finally, Miami, totaling 15 hours in the air. Since takeoff was slated for Saturday, a few group members chose to stay back to observe the Sabbath. Those left behind, whether by choice or circumstance, are stuck adapting to a dystopian reality, says Bendavid. Her 29-year-old son Ariel, who moved to Tel Aviv a year and a half ago, is adjusting to 30-minute sleep intervals as sirens go off at an almost hourly rate, forcing Israelis to wake up, find shelter and wait out the alerts multiple times a night. A friend of Bendavid's and her daughter continue to clock in to their jobs while stranded, comparing it to an all-too-familiar form of isolation. 'In a way, it's kind of like COVID, where you're not straying far from your house. You're all stuck inside, working on Zooms and doing your work remote, plus the feeling of being post-October 7,' she said. 'But yet, this is scarier, because of the missiles and the potential damage.' Anxiety left from being stranded in the war zone and evacuee's guilt keeps her up at night — Bendavid says she slept a little over an hour her first night home, compulsively checking the latest news on the conflict — but she's grateful for the perspective it's granted her and others from the Western world. 'People [in Israel] try to go about their daily business as much as they can and, when you're here, you're removed from it,' she said. 'You look all over the world at conflict, and for the most part, people in the United States are extremely privileged and fortunate. I don't think people realize how much we are here.'
CBS News
17-06-2025
- CBS News
South Floridians trapped in Israel amid missile strikes, flight cancellations
A South Florida journalist and a Miami mother are among hundreds of Americans stranded in Israel after Iranian missile attacks grounded flights and closed airspace. Al Ferguson, a reporter from Wilton Manors covering Pride events in Tel Aviv for Hotspots Magazine and Happening Out Television Network, found himself reporting under vastly different circumstances. "This isn't your normal beat" "This isn't your normal beat. You wouldn't normally be in a war zone," CBS News Miami said during a Zoom interview with Ferguson. "No," he replied. "And my coming here, this was the last thing that we expected!" Ferguson was in Tel Aviv when missiles from Iran flew overhead — most intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome defense system. With commercial air traffic halted, he is now stuck. "It is beyond scary here, because there's literally, there's literally nothing I can do," Ferguson said. "And to be honest with you, [I] feel very trapped and isolated." Miami mother stuck after visiting son Dahlia Bendavid, who traveled to Israel to visit her son, is also grounded indefinitely. "Everybody found themselves stuck here in the same situation. Airspace is closed, no one can get out," said Bendavid, of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation. "I had a flight that was scheduled to leave last night, and obviously it was canceled. And I'm looking at other ways of leaving the country." She quickly became a point of connection for others in the same situation. What began as a small group chat among South Florida travelers grew rapidly. "It started with 30 people. Now we're up to about 340 people in this chat group," Bendavid said. Federation members from Broward and Palm Beach counties have since joined, all searching for a safe way home. "It's scary. You don't know when it's going to come." With the Israeli government urging civilians not to drive due to the threat of missile attacks, options remain extremely limited. "It's a very different situation, and it's scary," Bendavid said. "It's scary. You don't know where, when it's going to come." Both Ferguson and Bendavid, along with hundreds of South Florida residents, are now anxiously waiting for airspace to reopen and for commercial flights to resume. Israel's national airline, El Al, has canceled flights at least through Monday.
Miami Herald
15-06-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
‘Oh my God, what's going on?' Miami visitors stranded as missiles target Israel
Dahlia Bendavid is no stranger to the sound of sirens. The Aventura woman has spent the last three years raising millions in emergency funding for Israel and visiting several times after the Hamas terrorist attack as director of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation's overseas department. Still, the shrill alarm that echoed on Friday morning as Israel announced airstrikes on neighboring Iran gave her that familiar feeling. 'I'm telling you, like, jumping out of bed, 'Oh my God, what's going on?' because you're all discombobulated,' she said, describing the moments before she and and a friend ran into a bomb shelter to wait out the expected barrage signaled by the sirens. Bendavid is one of several Miamians caught in the conflict that started Friday following Israel's targeted attack on Iran's nuclear facilities and military chain of command. Paul Kruss, an Aventura city commissioner visiting family in Israel, also took cover in a bomb shelter as sirens went off. Friday night saw counter strikes from Iran, with missiles hitting at least seven sites near Tel Aviv, and Saturday saw Israeli missiles flying over Tehran in the morning with a retaliatory attack by Iran in the evening. The death toll is estimated to be 78 in Iran, including four top security chiefs, according to the country's U.N. ambassador, while three casualties have been confirmed in Israel as reported by the Associated Press. The attacks, launched over Israel's concerns about Iran's growing nuclear program, happened days shy of a U.S.-Iran meeting where both countries planned to discuss curbing the program in exchange for the U.S. lifting its sanctions. Bendavid, 58, arrived in Israel on May 30, two weeks before the missiles started flying, for a routine visit to Israeli organizations that her nonprofit funds. On Thursday, the day before the first strike by Israel, she attended a computer coding hackathon for Orthodox Jewish women studying technology. Though the attacks marked a stark escalation in a decades-long conflict, Bendavid says daily life in Israel is not much different than 'preparing for a hurricane' in South Florida. She describes the same unease and uncertainty about where a storm might land to where a missile might hit in Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut, the central-Israel city she's staying in halfway between metropolises Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Schools and workplaces are closed and national events like the week-long Tel Aviv Pride parade have been canceled. Grocery shelves are wiped clean of essentials like milk and eggs as residents stock up their 'safe rooms,' small-scale shelters set up in homes or apartment complexes. Alerts from the Home Front Command app wake locals from restless sleeps, often giving a three-minute window to enter the nearest 'protected space' before the next attack is expected. The sirens, she says, go off 'in the middle of the night. The other day it was at 3 in the morning. Last night it was at 1 in the morning. You're not sleeping because of the stress and the anxiety.' For others, safety has proven even harder to come by, Bendavid said. Her 29-year-old son Ariel, who moved to Tel Aviv a year and a half ago, is one of many Israeli residents who live in outdated buildings with no bomb shelters. He sleeps in his clothes because when alarms sound, he has about a minute to bolt across the street to an underground parking garage. Neighbors of Bendavid's have woken up to shrapnel in their backyards and have been urged by locals to not post photos of the debris on social media or share them via messaging apps for fear that the Iranian government will have more information on its targets. Vacationers from South Florida and study-abroad students from schools including the University of Miami and Florida International University found themselves stranded in highly targeted cities Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Israeli media predicted airport shutdowns for the next three to four days and some U.S. airlines have halted flights through the summer. Benadvid isn't sure if her flight back home, scheduled for Tuesday morning, will take off. Israel is in a state of trauma and shock, she said, even though morale remains high. 'I've been getting a lot of texts asking 'Are you OK?' ... Like, how would you be in the middle of a war?' she said. 'But at the same time, I trust the army to defend us. They're doing an amazing job, the people are optimistic. We have hope.'
