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The Herald Scotland
37 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
American students reveal harrowing stories of fleeing Israel-Iran war
The thousands of escapees included 17 high schoolers from Arizona who huddled in bomb shelters before boarding a cruise ship to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. A dozen Florida State University students studying geopolitics in the Middle East fled to Israel's mountainous Dead Sea region and crossed into Jordan. "It was a fear that I have never felt before," Aidan Fishkind, who was in Israel for a two-month birthright and internship program, told USA TODAY. "We had a missile land two miles from our hostel." The conflict, which has calmed under a delicate ceasefire, came during Israel's busiest tourism season - when birthright trips and programs affiliated with American universities were in full swing. According to the Birthright Israel Foundation, a nonprofit that sponsors young people to visit Israel, the group safely evacuated approximately 2,800 young adults from the country - many of them aboard a luxury cruise ship. The nonprofit canceled its scheduled programs through July 10, according to its website. Meanwhile, the spiraling war also sent Americans in Iran looking for a safe place to wait out Israeli bombardments. Hundreds of Americans fled the country as the conflict escalated, according to an internal State Department cable seen by Reuters last week. More: Iran-Israel conflict leaves Iranian Americans feeling helpless, hopeless 'I was scared for my life' Fishkind, of Detroit, Michigan, arrived in Israel on June 3 for what was to be a two-month trip where he'd intern in the marketing department at the Jaffa Institute, a nonprofit based in Tel Aviv. But a little after his first week, the war broke out and left him and his fellow students scrambling for safety. He recalled the first night after Israel launched its attack on Iranian nuclear sites and Iran responded with a barrage of missiles. He and his group of Detroit-area students received phone alerts about incoming rocket fire and rushed into rooms and stairwells designated "safe zones." Throughout the night, he heard deep dooms that shook the building. He considered whether the rumbles were the sound of Israel's air defense system intercepting rockets or Iranian missiles landing in the city. It was both, he would later learn. "I was scared for my life," he said. In Detroit, his mother, Jennifer Fishkind, booked him multiple flights back home. But one-by-one each flight was canceled as Israeli officials closed the country's airspace. "You just feel helpless being thousands of miles away," she said. "We kept telling him 'You're going to be OK. You're going to be OK.'" The next day, Fishkind and his group left for the Dead Sea region in the south, which was considered much safer than Tel Aviv. There, Fishkind stayed in a hotel and met scores of other students from across the U.S. and Canada. After almost a week, he boarded a cruise ship to Cyprus. Once on the island, he immediately got on a flight to Rome and, eventually, Detroit. Fishkind, who is preparing for his junior year at Elon University in North Carolina, said being back home has been an adjustment. The memories of the sirens and the night he spent sheltering from missiles will take time to process, he said. "When I got back home and laid in bed, I kept thinking 'Did that actually happen?'" Tallahassee student recounts memories of sirens and bunkers Madeline King traveled to Israel with a group of over 20 Florida State University students as part of a mission trip to examine and study the Israel-Gaza conflict. It was organized by FSU's Hillel, the university's largest Jewish campus organization. The group was set to leave Israel and return to Florida on Saturday, June 14 - the day after the Israeli military attacked Iran's nuclear program. The unrest left them temporarily stranded in Tel Aviv, which had become a target of Iranian missiles. "We would hear sirens through the night ... and at every time we would find ourselves going down to the bunkers," King told the Tallahassee Democrat, part of the USA TODAY Network. Like Fishkind, her group headed to the Dead Sea region near the West Bank. They then crossed into Jordan, where they boarded a flight bound for Cyprus. There, King and hundreds of others got on flights to Florida in an operation coordinated with the state's Division of Emergency Management agency. In all, more than 1,400 state residents have been evacuated from Israel by plane and passenger ferry, Florida state officials said last week. A tearful reunion The group of 17 high school students from Arizona arrived in Israel on June 4 and traveled through the country for a week, learning Jewish religious traditions and the culture and history of Israel. Like their fellow American students, the group soon discovered they couldn't leave by plane as they had originally intended. "It is such a helpless, scary feeling to have your child thousands of miles away going into a bomb shelter multiple times a day as warning sirens ring out and missiles approach Israel," Brett Kurland, a parent to one of the Arizona students, said in a statement, according to the Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network. With the help of Arizona Sens. Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly, the students managed to get on a luxury cruise ship departing for Cyprus. After an 18-hour voyage they made it to the island and then flew back to the U.S. Scores of families waited for the students at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on June 25. Some stood anxiously with homemade signs while others held flowers and balloons. When the students emerged from the jet bridge, the families cheered and embraced their loved ones in a tearful reunion. Similar scenes unfolded at international airports across the U.S. In Michigan, Jennifer Fishkind and a group of parents embraced their children as they descended from their plane at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. "After all that, you're just waiting to get your arms around them," Fishkind said. "It was the best feeling."
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Fired federal workers lobby for help on Capitol Hill – is anyone listening?
The Tuesday Group was feeling something familiar as its members milled around a bank of elevators in the bustling basement of a Senate office building: rejection. They had often been told no over the past months – when the government moved to fire them with Donald Trump's blessing, when judges rejected challenges to that decision and when the lawmakers who they have taken to tracking down on Capitol Hill once a week when Congress is in session would turn a deaf ear to their pleas. More than 59,000 federal workers have lost their jobs since Trump took office, according to government data, but those in power have not changed their tune. This Tuesday morning, it was staffers of Maine's Republican senator Susan Collins who had told them no, even after they staged an impromptu sit-in in her office for the better part of a half hour. So they proceeded five floors down to the basement of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, hoping that some senator – any senator – would give them a moment of their time. Then the elevator doors opened and who should come out but Collins. 'Senator Collins!' someone in the group yelled. Another tried to introduce themselves: 'I'm a fired federal worker.' But the senator began waving her hands in front of her in an unmistakable sign of: I don't have time for this. 'Thank you,' Collins said, as she made her way down the hall. 'It's somewhat typical,' observed Whitt Masters, a former USAID contractor who has been unemployed since the end of March, when the company employing him decided to file for bankruptcy after its client began to shut down. 'You know, I don't expect every senator to stop and speak with us. I wish she'd been a bit more approachable, especially since we had spent some time in her office earlier today.' What's been dubbed the Tuesday Group has come around the Capitol since mid-February, as Trump and Elon Musk's campaign to thin out the federal workforce began to bite. Some who show up have been fired, others are on paid leave while a judge considers whether it is legal to fire them, and those who work for USAID expect to officially lose their jobs next Tuesday, when the agency shuts down. Democrats often welcome them, but when it comes to the Republicans who control Congress – and are weighing legislation to codify some cuts and make deeper ones in the next fiscal year – the reception has been uneven. They've been ignored, blown off and belittled – all things they would experience last Tuesday, their 17th visit to the Hill. Their encounter with Collins fruitless, the group formed something of a gauntlet at the intersection of a hallway leading between office buildings and to the Senate subway, a place where lawmakers were sure to pass on a scorcher of a day. They would call out to any face they recognized, but the group of 10 was nothing a determined senator couldn't handle. Montana Republican Tim Sheehy speed-walked by with a reporter and cameraman in pursuit; Washington Democrat Patty Murray pounded past in sneakers; and Arkansas Republican John Boozman ambled through alone, displaying no sign that he knew the group was even there. 'Would you like to hear how we are impacting your constituents?' asked Stephie Duliepre, who was fired from her Science for Development fellowship program at USAID, when Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn came around the corner. The senator pushed on, the answer apparently being no. John Hoeven, a Republican from North Dakota, exited a stairwell that deposited him right in the middle of the group. He appeared to recognize them – on a previous visit, attendees said that Hoeven had discussed his support for folding a major USAID food assistance program into the state department. 'I see you're still working on it,' he quipped, before heading off. The Democrats they encountered uttered words of encouragement, and a few stopped to talk. 'Don't give up,' Dick Durbin of Illinois said when he encountered the group. 'I'm with you,' Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin called out. South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham attempted the silent treatment as he came past, but Amelia Hertzberg, who was on administrative leave from her job in the Environmental Protection Agency, was not having it. She followed him down the hall, and started prancing around to get his attention. 'You have a bright future,' Hertzberg recalls the senator saying. 'Well, I was going to have a bright future, and then I was fired,' she replied. The group spotted Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican and prominent Trump ally. 'Senator Hawley, these are fired federal workers. Do you have a second to talk to them?' asked Melissa Byrne, a community organizer who had put together the group. 'No,' he replied. The group was aghast, but they'd been treated worse. When Mack Schroeder encountered Indiana Republican Jim Banks one Tuesday and introduced himself as having been fired from the Department of Health and Human Services, the senator replied, 'You probably deserved it,' before calling him 'a clown'. That was in April. The incident made the news, Banks refused to apologize, and the Tuesday Group kept showing up. 'I've spoken to the media and been on the radio. I've called my senators, my representatives, and it feels a little bit like shouting into a void,' said Hertzberg, who has made about 12 visits to the Capitol now. 'So it feels good to go into senator's offices and be there and take up space for a while and make them see, or their staff see that there is a person behind all this.'
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Canada ditches tax on tech giants in bid to restart US trade talks
Canada has rescinded its digital services tax in a bid to advance trade negotiations with the US, the country's finance ministry has announced, days after Donald Trump ended trade talks amid a dispute over the levy. Canadian prime minister Mark Carney and US president Donald Trump will resume trade negotiations with a view towards agreeing on a deal by 21 July, the ministry said in a statement late on Sunday. The US has been negotiating a trade deal with Canada, one of its top two global trading partners, for months – but those negotiations appeared to hit a road block on Friday after Trump accusing Canada of imposing unfair taxes on US technology companies in a 'direct and blatant attack on our country'. The first payments on the tax were due on Monday and would have cost US tech companies, including Alphabet, Amazon and Meta, an estimated $3bn. This is a breaking news story, please check back for updates
