{"id":60152,"date":"2026-04-09T22:47:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T22:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/60152\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T22:47:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T22:47:16","slug":"chicago-woman-fears-for-family-in-lebanon-amid-continued-israeli-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/60152\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago woman fears for family in Lebanon amid continued Israeli attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Chicago woman with relatives in Lebanon said her family is terrified as Israel continues its attacks, which Iran says violates its ceasefire agreement with the U.S.<\/p>\n

United Nations Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres has called for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon<\/a>, after more than 80 countries condemned “persistent attacks” in Lebanon<\/a> and the killings of U.N. peacekeepers there. The U.S. was not on the list of signatories in the statement.<\/p>\n

Speaking from Chicago about her family in Lebanon, Sahar Ditka said her relatives there are terrified.<\/p>\n

“I mean, they’re scared. Getting bombed 100 times in 10 minutes is terrifying,” she said.<\/p>\n

Lebanon says more than 1 million people have been forced to flee their homes due to the Israeli operation, and that at least 203 people were killed on Wednesday alone. The death toll from the last five weeks was over 1,500 even before Wednesday’s strikes.<\/p>\n

“They’re being bombed indiscriminately, so there is no quote-unquote safe zones anymore,” Ditka said.<\/p>\n

Lebanon’s prime minister said there were significant civilian casualties in Wednesday’s attacks, but Israel’s defense minister\u00a0said Thursday that “200 terrorists” were killed<\/a>\u00a0in the strikes.<\/p>\n

“This is absolutely not true that they are targeting Hezbollah, and only Hezbollah. They were bombing in Christian neighborhoods. They’re bombing all over Lebanon,” Ditka said.<\/p>\n

The strikes have jeopardized a fragile ceasefire between Iran and the U.S.<\/p>\n

Iran’s deputy foreign minister called Israel’s attacks in Lebanon “a grave violation” of the two-week ceasefire agreement, and said the U.S. must choose “between war and ceasefire.” <\/p>\n

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday he’s authorized direct negotiations with Lebanon, which are expected to start next week.<\/p>\n

Meantime, Vice President JD Vance was preparing to lead peace talks with Iran this weekend. <\/p>\n

“If they don’t give us what we need, then I think it’s going to be bad, but I’m optimistic that the Iranians are going to be smart, that they’re going to negotiate in good faith,” Vance said.<\/p>\n

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said European allies are stepping up to secure the Strait of Hormuz, following talks with President Donald Trump. The White House earlier said the NATO alliance had failed. <\/p>\n

“Nearly without exception, allies are doing everything the United States is asking. They have heard and are responding to President Trump’s requests,” Rutte said.<\/p>\n

Ditka said she and her family do not want to see another deadly day in Lebanon. <\/p>\n

“You know, the hospitals have been overrun over there, people are donating blood, there’s almost a million people in Beirut who have been displaced from the south. So, yeah, I think that they were looking forward to having some sort of peace for at least a little while,” she said.<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Chicago woman with relatives in Lebanon said her family is terrified as Israel continues its attacks, which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[2803,100,34,37,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-60152","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-lebanon","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-hezbollah","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-lebanon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116377186687700130","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}