'Bombs were dropping either side of us': Irish woman speaks of terror in Lebanon

Residents search the rubble left by an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburbs on Tuesday, September 24. Picture: Hassan Ammar/AP

A 24-year-old Irish woman trapped in Lebanon with her family has spoken of the horror of being caught up in the Israeli bombardment of the country.

Gadir Zabad, from Kilkenny, had gone there two weeks ago to attend a funeral with parents Munir, 53, and Ghada, 47, and her 12-year-old brother Hassan, but got caught in the bombardment on her way out of the country.

The family had just arrived in the southern Lebanon city of Nabatieh when they were met with people frantically trying to get out of the area.

Although Beirut is just an hour from the city, it took them five hours to get there on Monday from Nabatieh.

Speaking on Newstalk’s Hard Shoulder evening news programme, Gadir said: “It was in the middle of the war zone.

“There was just bombs being dropped on either sides of us and we were trying to get out of Nabatieh when the bombs started dropping.

There were bombs very close to our house and people were driving crazily. And, on the way to Beirut, bombs started being dropped on the cars, mainly ambulances that were coming and going.

“With everyone trying to flee, it took us over five hours.” 

She said her own situation was not as bad as what others had to endure, with attempts to get to Beirut taking all day, with “no food, no water, kids in the car, extreme heat and bombs coming and going”.

She described seeing people dying and buildings being blown up around her as “something out of a movie”.

She added: “You would not think it was real life."

She said that while she has tried to “stay calm, sane and rational”, there are times when she is “completely terrified”.

Once in Beirut, the family stayed in a school but they have had to leave there because the Israelis have started bombing the city too near where the school was.

The family is staying with four other families in an apartment belonging to a friend of Gadir’s fiancé, Ali Kachab, who she became engaged to on Monday.

She says she has been in touch with the Irish Embassy in neighbouring Egypt, looking for assistance.

But so far she says she has been told she will receive emails with any updates, and she has also been told to “keep trying to book flights, keep trying to get out”.

On staying in Beirut, she added: 

I would have felt relatively safe but now they have bombed Beirut, it’s turning into what we left behind. The war zone is following us into Beirut. 

A Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said: “[We] have undertaken significant contingency planning to prepare for a possible consular crisis as a result of an escalation in Lebanon.

“Since October, the Department has strongly advised against all travel to Lebanon, and continues to advise Irish citizens to leave Lebanon by commercial means while still possible to do so.

One of the funerals of people killed in Monday's Israeli airstrikes in the southern village of Saksakieh, Lebanon. Picture: Mohammed Zaatari/AP

“The Department has undertaken an extensive review of our citizens registered in Lebanon, to establish contact with these citizens, confirm their status as present in Lebanon, and reiterate our travel advice.

“The Department, including through our Embassy in Cairo, remains in regular contact with Irish citizens in Lebanon.

“Irish citizens in Lebanon who cannot leave, and who have not already done so, are asked to register with the Embassy of Ireland in Cairo.” 

The latest hostilities between the Israelis and Hezbollah are happening near the so-called Camp Shamrock, where Irish Unifil peacekeepers are based.

If fears of an all-out invasion of Lebanon by Israel come true, it will see some 340 members of the Irish Defence Forces based in southern Lebanon being caught between the two warring sides.