South Florida doctor stuck in Israel scrambling to get home
MIAMI - Some Americans who were on vacation in Israel when war broke out in Israel are scrambling to get home. Major airlines have canceled flights in and out of the country.
A Miami doctor, Ariel Grobman was on vacation with his wife and three children in Tel Aviv when he heard about the attacks.
"We have friends and family here so we had a few nice weeks with them and then all of this began while we were getting ready to go home," said Dr. Grobman.
Instead, Dr. Grobman's family spent the last five days hearing rockets explode overhead and hiding in the stairwell.
"The stairwell provided a little bit of cover, but we heard bombs going off overhead, and it was really a very frightening 48 hours," said Dr. Grobman.
Amidst the ongoing rocket fire, he also found out he lost a close family friend.
"They found his body. He was in the clinic of his kibbutz caring for the wounded and his community, and that's where they found him slaughtered by Hamas terrorists," he said, becoming emotional.
Dr. Grobman is at a loss, dealing with horrible loss all the while worrying for his own family's safety.
"You can somewhat process when there is warfare between grown men and other grown men, but this sheer scale of the cruelty of what happened with babies, found beheaded and slaughtered and burned in their beds, elderly people going out for a morning walk, and mowed down by gunfire," he said.
Dr. Grobman says he can't understand those who are justifying the horrific acts.
"There are a lot of people out there, who are trying to say that Israelis had it coming to them because of the actions of their government and a lot of Israelis, and a lot of the Jews around the world are very critical of the Israeli government, but you will never see acts of this level of cruelty, committed by the Israeli government or the Jewish people," he said.
The family is flying through Athens then to Turkey and finally home to Miami.
They don't expect to get back to Miami until Thursday evening but Dr. Grobman says he is just happy they are safe.
"We've had multiple flights canceled. We're traveling with children and we're having to find a really convoluted way to get out of the country and eventually get back to miami... It's been a very trying time and I know thousands of people are trying to get home and back to their families too," said Dr. Grobman.
