Samer Bawab, a Lebanese American citizen from Cleveland, said this week the aerial bombardment in central Beirut was so intense that it physically shook his apartment."Imagine closing your eyes and just trying to find some peace for a few hours and then boom, boom, boom," Bawab told ABC News.In 2018, Bawab moved from his native Cleveland to Lebanon's capital city to be with his late father.Beirut became his home.
But, on Thursday, Bawab left behind a close circle of friends and his family legacy as he boarded an American evacuation flight to Istanbul.Samer pictured with his late father Rashid in Beirut, Lebanon.Bawab FamilyBawab was one of 134 passengers to leave Beirut on a flight Thursday morning evacuating Americans from Lebanon.The evacuation flight was confirmed by State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller during a press briefing.
The department advised on Friday that a third flight departed with 97 on board, bringing the total number of individuals evacuated through the charters to roughly 350.In the past few weeks, Bawab said the buzz of Israeli drones overhead and incessant aerial bombardment of Dahieh, located just five minutes from his apartment in the Ras el Nabeh neighborhood, had created growing fear and panic.Bawab said the intensity of the explosions was reminiscent of the Aug.
4, 2020, blast at Beirut's port -- an accidental explosion of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate that killed nearly 200 people and wiped out 77,000 apartments, according to the United Nations.MORE: Israel’s offensive in Lebanon has displaced 1.2 million, prime minister says"The Lebanese have a saying that the terror comes at night," Bawab said."Imagine a Lebanese family, we're ready to go to bed, we have work the next day, we're getting ready to sleep.
And all of a sudden, whether there's a warning or not, we hear a loud boom, which echoes all throughout Beirut.""Beirut is very small.So you can basically feel everything," Bawab explained.Bawab started communicating with t...