Lebanon: Australians stranded plead for help from the Federal Government
Sydney resident Mohamad El Iali just wants to hold his baby daughter Taleen again but the five-month-old is stranded in Beirut where an Israeli air strike this week killed three people, including two children, and injured 74 others.
Instead, Mr El Iali can only connect with Taleen over FaceTime as the Government urges Australians to leave Lebanon amid fears of a looming war, the infant’s face beaming at her father from a computer screen.
Taleen is a dual citizen of Australia but her mother Mouna only holds Lebanese citizenship and has waited more than six months for her visa to be processed.
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Mr El Iali is distraught that his wife and daughter are unable to flee Lebanon despite months of waiting for Mouna’s visa to be processed and multiple letters to the government.
“What are they waiting for? Are they waiting for them to die over there, and then they can grant them a visa after they die?” he told 7NEWS.
“I am going to be forced to go back, to go to Lebanon and stay with them, and risk my life.”
About 15,000 Australians are in Lebanon and are being urged to leave while commercial flights are still available amid fears Beirut airport will close if the conflict escalates.
Federal Government sources say granting visas to the relatives of thousands of family members of Australians in Lebanon could exhaust Australia’s entire humanitarian intake in one go.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Friday warned Australians to heed travel warnings and said the government was particularly concerned about Australians “continuing to visit Lebanon or staying in Lebanon”.
The warning comes after Israel killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh at his home in the Iranian capital of Tehran on Wednesday, in the wake of militant group Hezbollah killing 12 children in an air strike in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights over the weekend.
The travel advice for Lebanon was escalated on Monday, with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade recommending Australians “leave immediately”.
Frank Fayez Dandachali, 55, is stranded in Tripoli in Lebanon’s north after travelling from the western Sydney suburb of Bankstown to visit family a few weeks ago.
He said he and his fellow stranded Australians felt helpless as airlines cancelled flights and said he believed the Australian government should be doing more to help them return home.
“Everyone’s scared,” he said.
“We want to leave Lebanon, we should. It’s not safe here anymore. Everybody around the world knows that. But how? That’s my question for the Australian government. How are we going to leave Lebanon?”
Mr Dandachali said as a minimum the Australian embassy in Lebanon should have contacted him and said the government should send repatriation flights to rescue the stranded Australians.
“They should send a special airplane, doesn’t matter if it’s a small airplane, to pick up every Australian citizen from Lebanon,” he said.
“You cannot just say come back to Australia and just leave us.”
The Lebanese diaspora is calling for their relatives to be given the same treatment as people who fled Israel and Gaza after October 7 when Hamas militants killed 1200 people and saw some 250 others taken hostage.
Hezbollah denied responsibility, but a retaliatory Israeli air strike killed at least three people and injured 74 in the densely populated Beirut suburb and known Hezbollah stronghold of Haret Hreik on Tuesday night in Lebanon.
The ongoing war has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, whose count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
