A woman from Almeria and her family on vacation in Israel, waiting for a commercial flight to be evacuated

Rocío Caicedo, a 54-year-old from Almería on vacation in Israel and resident in the municipality of Fines, is waiting for a commercial flight scheduled for this Wednesday from Tel Aviv to be able to leave the country with her daughter, her son-in-law and her parents. two small grandchildren, of Swiss nationality, although with “the fear” of a new cancellation that will keep them on Israeli soil.

In a telephone conversation from the hotel where they are staying, located near the airport, Rocío has expressed the “uncertainty” with which they are living the remaining hours after the airline with which she had purchased the return trip canceled. the flight scheduled just when the conflict in the Gaza Strip began.

“After that we contacted the Spanish Embassy to find out what to do, but they told us to find our lives, so to speak.. Thank God we have found a flight that has a stopover in Jordan and will then take us to Geneva (Switzerland),” he indicated..

Caicedo has pointed out that it is “imperative” that “we can leave” since his grandchildren “are two children who are boys, they are little ones” and has highlighted that the “fear” that grips the family is “that they will call us at the last minute to cancel our flight again”. From the hotel room in which they are confined and which they only leave to buy food and diapers or go down to the shelter of the establishment itself when the attacks intensify, Rocío has indicated that her husband, in Fines, is in permanent contact with the mayor. , Rodrigo Sánchez.

He specified that, this morning, “national deputies” have contacted him, who have facilitated contact to request evacuation on the military planes that the Government is going to charter to help Spaniards who were in Israel leave. temporary and who were surprised by the massive attack launched by the Islamist movement Hamas on Saturday.

“We have not been able to contact him yet,” he said, “but now we have to see, we will have to see, if we finally travel tomorrow,” said Rocío, for whom the visit to Israel, scheduled for eight days, “was a lifelong dream that, at final, look what has been”.

Their daughter Silvana has explained, for her part, that the “only call” they have received from the Spanish authorities has been “the one from just 30 minutes ago giving us a telephone number” for the plane that the Government is going to charter and she has regretted that, at first, “we were only told that we had to find the solution ourselves”.

“We have done that, but we will not know if the commercial flight is going to be canceled or if it is even already canceled because they always inform at the last minute.”. That's what's getting on our nerves because we want to get out of here.. We live the nights anxious, unable to sleep because every now and then the alerts sound and we have to go hide in the bunker where we normally stay locked up for an hour,” he said..

He evoked Saturday night “as the hardest” when he had to “sleep all night” in that shelter and described the “fear” of going out into the street.. “We go out to buy food because we have to eat here, at the hotel, and because most of the restaurants are closed, so we are alert, looking everywhere. “The police are everywhere and the helicopters do not stop passing while we hear the bombings in the distance from Tel Aviv,” he said..

Silvana, who has mobilized “all” her friends in Spain to make her family's situation known, pointed out that they also considered the option of evacuating on a plane chartered by Switzerland, but “the fear I have is that they will send the plane “but only to repatriate Swiss people when my mother does not have nationality or a work permit and they leave her here.”. “Now we think that we are going to fly tomorrow, but we don't really know if we are going to be able to leave the country and that scares us,” he concluded..