JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A Jacksonville couple who were stranded in Israel as tensions escalated in the Middle East have finally made it back home after a long and unexpected journey.<\/p>\n
Their trip to visit family quickly turned into a complicated effort to leave the region after the conflict disrupted flights and closed airspace.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, their son told Action News Jax<\/a> his parents were stuck overseas as the situation unfolded. But late last night, they finally returned home to Jacksonville and are now sharing what it took to get back.<\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n For Fern Malowitz and her husband, the trip to Israel started as a simple visit with relatives.<\/p>\n \u201cWe went to see family. We have um, Nieces and nephews there,\u201d Malowitz said.<\/p>\n But just days into their visit, the situation in the region changed dramatically.<\/p>\n \u201cIn February, we arrived on the 21st and then we\u2019re scheduled to leave last Saturday and then the war broke out,\u201d Malowitz said.<\/p>\n The sudden escalation meant canceled flights and closed airspace, leaving the Jacksonville couple scrambling to find another route home.<\/p>\n \u201cAirspace was still closed. So we had to find another way of getting back through Egypt,\u201d Malowitz said.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n During the uncertainty, Malowitz said there were moments when they had to take shelter as warnings sounded.<\/p>\n \u201cSo people went to the bomb shelter and waited to see until the all clear sounded,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The couple also had to change where they were staying during the trip.<\/p>\n \u201cWe weren\u2019t sure what was going on. So we, we, at that point, weren\u2019t staying with our family. We were staying in a nearby hotel. We didn\u2019t get to see them very much,\u201d Malowitz said.<\/p>\n They were in Tel Aviv, Israel, but with the airspace closed, they had to drive about six hours to the Egyptian border so they could catch a flight out to Rome. They spent the night there before continuing their trip back to the United States.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department says it is working around the clock to help Americans in similar situations leave the region.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are continuing to work 24\/7 in this interagency task force to help Americans in those countries to leave should they desire to do so,\u201d said Tommy Pigott, Principal Deputy Spokesperson for the State Department.<\/p>\n Malowitz said despite the unexpected detours and uncertainty, she is thankful they were able to return to Jacksonville safely.<\/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":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A Jacksonville couple who were stranded in Israel as tensions escalated in the Middle East…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[85368,982,20354,85365,9286,7840,61045,85366,269,969,116,118,117,634,85370,82482,9476,9475,76479,7842,85367,628,85369,51459],"class_list":["post-180597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-_israel","tag-action_news","tag-americans","tag-ashley_jackson","tag-ben","tag-ben_becker","tag-egypt","tag-fern_malowitz","tag-israel","tag-jack","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-local","tag-malowitz","tag-middle_east","tag-nicholas","tag-nicholas_brooks","tag-rome","tag-tanika_hughes","tag-tel_aviv","tag-us","tag-us_state_department","tag-yona_gvino"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180597","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=180597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}