Family stranded in Israel at start of conflict with Iran is relieved to be back in Chicago
Americans have been caught in the chaos of escalating tensions between Israel and Iran.
CBS News Chicago introduced you to one Chicago family's fight to return home from Israel last week. They have now made it back, but they said their emotional and financial toll is still not over.
At this time last week, Rachel Albert was stranded in southern Israel along with her husband, her two sons — ages 13 and 15 — and her 80-year-old mother. In an ever-evolving situation, she was ready to spare no expense for safety.
But her story is just one way the conflict between Iran and Israel is reaching far beyond the battlefield — to Chicago.
"I don't think we realized how much we weren't sleeping, and just how intense everything was until we got home," said Albert.
One week ago, Albert's family was filming missiles in the night sky in Israel. They had expected to fill their phones with photos from her son's bar mitzvah trip to Israel, but that celebration gave way to a stressful, chaotic return.
The family later crossed from southern Israel into Jordan, found five seats on a chartered plane to Paris, and then finally flew to O'Hare International Airport, arriving back in Chicago late this past Friday. In all, this amounted to more than 40 hours of travel time and tens of thousands of dollars in travel expenses.
"You know, money at that point in time, it was like monopoly money," said Albert. "I have over $150,000 right now of just commercial flights that I had booked."
Albert said there were few options.
"We probably filled out about 30 forms," she said. "I got a lot of emails. I filled out a lot of forms. We were directed to a lot of websites. They all had sort of the same updates."
Albert had even fewer answers from the U.S. State Department.
"We just, we were frustrated with the lack of options that the government was providing to us," she said, "especially as we were in the Jordanian airport, and there were some European constituents whose embassies had sent planes."
On Monday, President Trump announced that Israel and Iran had agreed on a "Complete and Total" ceasefire, a move he said would end a more than weeklong conflict between the two countries. "War will be considered, ENDED," Mr. Trump wrote on .
A senior White House official told CBS News both sides had agreed to a ceasefire, with Israel agreeing as long as there are no further Iranian strikes.
The conflict between Israel and Iran began June 13 with Israel launching airstrikes against Iranian nuclear and military targets. The strikes — which killed several top Iranian military officials — prompted Iranian counterattacks on Israel.
The U.S. took military action against Iran over the weekend, striking three sites that are believed to be key to Iran's nuclear program. The move sparked fears of a wider war, but Iran's response on Monday was fairly limited. Iran fired more than a dozen missiles at a U.S. base in Qatar, most of which were intercepted, and no injuries were reported, U.S. and Qatari officials said.
Multiple people associated with Northwestern University's Doha, Qatar campus had to shelter in place for hours.
Texts from Northwestern University in Qatar started hours before the missiles began firing, alerting students to go to their homes.
"It was very strong, very strong," said student Yamna Abdi Jama. "It felt very — everything was shaking. The windows were shaking, and the noise just kept coming."
Meanwhile, in Chicago on Monday, protesters held a rally in Federal Plaza against U.S. and Israeli actions in Iran, and then marched through downtown streets just after President Trump announced the ceasefire agreement.
But all this came well after Albert's self-evacuation.
"This has been a plan for a long time, you know, with our president and with Prime Minister Netanyahu," Albert said, "and I just wish that they would have thought one step ahead about the people on the ground, the citizens on the ground who would have been impacted."
Albert said some, but not all, of the airlines she dealt with confirmed that the money she spent on their flights will be returned, since the airlines canceled those flights during travel restrictions.
