Marco, blocked in Israel: “I have to leave my wife and children here for Farnesina because they are not Italian citizens”

“Approximately 200 Italians are returning with two military planes. The flights, initiated at the request of Farnesina and coordinated with the Ministry of Defense, will arrive in Pratica di Mare. We are proud of the teamwork involving the Italian Embassy in Israel, the Consulate in Jerusalem, the Consulate General in Jerusalem and Israel “I hear.” ‘Crisis Units and the Military’. This is the tweet of Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, retweeted by the Farnesina account, that our citizens who were in Israel yesterday, Tuesday, October 10, at 7.34 and landed at the military airport on the outskirts of Israel late in the morning, were repatriated. was in the capital and was soon all over the news. At the same time, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited the Synagogue of Rome to express solidarity with the Italian Jewish community, immediately after meeting with Chief Rabbi Di Segni, assuring journalists that the Government would do everything possible to return the congregation to its community. all citizens. A third military aircraft has been commissioned and will land this evening. There are other Italians on board, but not all.

In fact, there are still many citizens in Israel waiting to escape the country at war. Among them is Marco Macari from Bolzano, who has been living in Tel Aviv for 10 years, with his Israeli wife and four children aged between 2 and 7. His story deserves to be told because he risks slipping deeper and deeper into the funnel of poor services, neglect and bureaucracy that, as he told Today, leaves him with “no escape”.

To give you an idea, Marco lives in Jaffa, Tel Aviv’s coastal district, “it’s like saying Rome and Ostia,” he explains. He said that the 7-storey and 120 square meter shelter of the building is open to everyone’s use, even though not everyone can go downstairs: “When the siren sounds, you have to be quick, there are elderly people in the building, you cannot take the elevator.” – He says on the phone from his home after a day of alarms – If you don’t have time, it is made of reinforced concrete and You take shelter in the corridors, which are the least dangerous areas. The siren goes off and when it stops you have to wait another quarter of an hour to go up again. The problem is the frequency, sometimes they play back to back and you stay there for hours. Hearing the sirens is terrifying.” Especially for children: “They become aware of everything. We try to keep them away from the most serious traumas, but we told them what happened. They cry and get scared every time they hear an explosion. We are trying to keep them alive.” How can you provide normality and distract them by playing games?” Life has been going on at home since Saturday, he continues: “The police invited us not to go out, to buy supplies and medicine from the market and not to move for the next 72 hours. Hezbollah’s attack from the north. Israel is at war, the situation is dramatic, terror. Day and night , you can hear the bombings every ten minutes and the noise is getting closer. There have been no major incidents. There are very few collisions here yet, Marco explains – three hits near Tel Aviv, 4 kilometers north of Jaffa. As a missile crashes into an empty building housing offices “Two missiles were stopped and their fragments fell on cars, injuring many people. Thank God, the condition of the injured is not serious.” However, what is really scary is not the missiles they say they are “used to”, but the ground attacks. Knowing that someone could shoot in the street, or even worse, break into the house and carry out real massacres, as in many villages and as Marco learned first hand: “A friend of mine called me yesterday to tell me that they had killed his cousin, his wife, 7 months pregnant, and their 5 children, in Tel Aviv 35 kilometers south of . This is worrying news. I also learned that about 20 kilometers south of Jerusalem, Hamas launched an armed attack, broke into the home of a family member, one of my colleagues, and killed them all. The ground strikes did not reach Tel Aviv, but we are afraid .”

‘A mockery’ of return flight

Marco Macari is among the Italians who received an email from the Italian Embassy in Israel with an invitation to get on the list of the repatriation flight activated by Farnesina. All you had to do was reply and provide your passport information. A mirage. And indeed. “I called to check and they told me to send my information immediately to be added to the list,” he said, but his dreams were suddenly shattered: “I asked if I could bring my wife and children, and they said no. The flight is reserved for Italian citizens. If I want to leave for them, I will have to leave my wife and children here.” .” Two more emails from the Embassy followed, again with an invitation to forward repatriation details and bookings. The latest message reads: “This is to confirm that flights departing from Tel Aviv-Rome on October 10 and 11 have already been completed. We are evaluating with Farnesina the possibility of adding a third return flight. If you are interested, be part of it.” The reservation list answers this. Note: we would like to remind you that only passengers of Italian nationality can be on board”. A note indicating that this is a sentence and opens the door to an important and urgent thought about the need to overcome, or at least work on, a bureaucratic technicality in an absolute emergency such as an ongoing war.

As for the issue of citizenship, Marco, who himself has Israeli citizenship since 2020, makes an important point by condemning the poor services at the Italian Embassy in Israel: “My children never managed to obtain Italian citizenship due to problems at the Embassy. I made three appointments and several They canceled my appointment three times a day ago. I’m over it, they give you an appointment every 6/7 months. When I met a police officer who worked there, he gave me all the references, emails and phone numbers to start the proceedings. I also could not come to a conclusion in this case. That police officer “Even he realized the incompetence at the bureaucratic level. It’s a complete shame.”

His case is not isolated. Even a Roman friend of his who is married to his wife’s cousin is in the same situation: “He managed to get citizenship for his two children because he physically went to Rome, but his wife is Israeli and he has to go.” “He’s here. He can’t find a flight, Farnesina won’t help him. He’s given up.”

Flight chaos: ticket lottery

The alternative to leaving the country is to do so on a scheduled flight, and this is where another adventure begins. Turkish Airlines and national carrier El Al are the only two airlines currently flying to Tel Aviv. All others have been disconnected. This means few available seats, a high probability of canceled flights, and rapidly increasing prices. It’s practically a lottery. It’s a lottery of tickets won by whoever is lucky enough to buy the right one, avoiding overbooking and planes that don’t take off. Of course, Marco, who works at a tour operator, is not unaware of this, but there is complete chaos: “I called a friend of mine in Turkish, he bought the tickets, but they were canceled today due to overbooking. Then I saw that they had bought them too. The entire flight was cancelled. I took others today.” “, I paid once again for the day after tomorrow. The destination is Munich, my parents and brothers live in Germany. Let’s see if they cancel this too. The movie is always the same: either it’s sold out or you buy the flight and then they cancel it.” A few hours after our phone conversation, Marco texted me that the flight that would take him to see his family tomorrow morning was also canceled. The other painful and scandalous point is the costs: “I have paid more than $15,700 so far. The prices are shocking. I am shocked by the greed of the companies.”

Trapped in a vice

Unfortunately, Marco Macari and his family are stuck in a vice, not just a bureaucratic one. It is almost impossible for them to leave the country without a flight. Borders cannot be crossed. To the north, Jordan, the only possible escape route, has closed its borders to Israeli citizens, saying it can only help tourists. “We are stuck, Marco repeats. I can go back to Italy, but I can’t go to Jordan without my wife and children because they have closed the borders to Israel. We have no way out.”

Source: Today IT

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