Local families are feeling the effects of rising tensions overseas. One Jacksonville man says his parents are stuck in Israel after commercial flights were canceled amid a state of emergency.<\/p>\n
Action News Jax spoke with David Malowitz, who said his parents had traveled to Israel for what was supposed to be a one-week family visit. Now, they\u2019re unable to return home.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s just say I\u2019m not too thrilled with Iran right now,\u201d Malowitz said.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n He said the first sign that something was wrong came during a phone call from his parents.<\/p>\n \u201cThey said that we might not be coming home soon and I said what\u2019s going on and they said check the news,\u201d Malowitz said.<\/p>\n That\u2019s when he learned about the rapidly escalating conflict in the Middle East.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of surreal,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n With commercial flights canceled and uncertainty surrounding the region\u2019s airspace, Malowitz said he has spent his time trying to stay connected with loved ones.<\/p>\n \u201cToday was pretty much calling all the family members. Everyone\u2019s just talking to each other and we\u2019re hoping everyone\u2019s OK,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n Action News Jax also heard from Mariam Fesist, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Northeast Florida, who is currently in Israel leading an interfaith missions trip. In a message to the Jacksonville community, she said her group is safe.<\/p>\n \u201cThe message we want to share with Jacksonville is thank you for all the calls and texts. We feel really safe. We feel really OK,\u201d Fesist said.<\/p>\n She added, \u201cWe weren\u2019t really afraid and we feel very safe here in Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n For now, Malowitz said until flights resume and his parents can return to Jacksonville, all he can do is wait and hope.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Local families are feeling the effects of rising tensions overseas. One Jacksonville man says his parents are stuck…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[344,82341,82340,269,116,118,117],"class_list":["post-173531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action-news-jax","tag-commercial-flights","tag-david-malowitz","tag-israel","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}