No way out

Israelis flee south, Lebanese flee west, but for thousands too poor or too ill to leave—and for U.S. and Arab diplomats detangling a war on civilians—weeks of continued attacks in the Middle East leave | Mindy Belz, Jamie Dean

Tom Charara relishes the Lebanon of his youth. Though he's lived in the United States for more than 30 years, Charara, 50, remembers his childhood home as a "romantic" place full of beauty and tradition. "It's a place you long for all your life," he told WORLD. But on a trip with his family to the Middle East in July, Lebanon quickly became a place he longed to flee.

Charara wasn't alone. After intense fighting broke out between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon on July 12, thousands of U.S. citizens clamored to leave the country. Good news in wartime wins little attention, but in just over a week, the U.S. military managed to evacuate safely some 12,000 Americans under precarious hot-zone conditions. Another 20,000 foreign nationals left Lebanon by late July, traveling to Cyprus or Turkey by boat.