Israel-Iran conflict: As missiles rain down, terrified West Bengal students desperate to get out

KOLKATA: Terrified after Tuesday's missile attacks by Iran, research scholars from Bengal studying and working at various institutes in Israel are desperate to return home but are unable to do so as most international flights to and from the country have been suspended.

Though a few rushed back to India last month fearing a retaliation by Iran following Israel's attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon, several others are now trapped in the country and want to get out before the conflict evolves into a full-scale war in the region.

Many of them told TOI that they were in constant touch with the Indian embassy in Tel Aviv and were anxiously waiting for an evacuation advisory from the ministry of external affairs.

Nilabja Roychowdhury, a resident of Madhyamgram on the outskirts of Kolkata, who is pursuing post-doctoral research in medicine at Bar-Ilan University, said they were jittery after the missile attacks.

"It is getting scarier by the day. A few days ago, a bomb dropped barely 100 metres from a friend's home. The CCTV camera installed in his terrace captured the footage. It could have been his house. The Israel-Hamas conflict last year did not affect us much, but this time it is different," said Roychowdhury, who lives in Safed, in northern Israel.

According to students living in cities like Safed and Haifa, a port city in northern Israel, villages along the northern border have already been evacuated. People are being forced to spend hours inside ‘mamad' or bunkers as sirens are going off frequently during the day. Many locals have shifted south, towards Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, to escape a possible attack.

Sankhanava Kundu, a final-year Phd student with the department of neurobiology at the University of Haifa, said felt the interception of missiles by Israel's famed Iron Dome followed by ear-splitting sound have made his days and nights horrific.

"Haifa was safer during the Israel-Hamas conflict last year. But this time Haifa seems unsafe. Those who have come to Israel recently are finding the situation very disturbing," said Kundu, a Kolkata resident, who had stayed put in Haifa last year when most of this friends in Tel Aviv returned to India.

"The Indian embassy is communicating with us. They have asked us to remain alert and vigilant and follow safety protocols. We have also been asked to avoid unnecessary travel within the country," he said.

Barrackpore resident Sayantan Maiti, who is pursuing research in surface chemistry of diamonds at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, was among the lucky ones who managed to return home on Monday.

"The situation is getting scarier by the day and I coudn't take any more chances. There were many Indian students on my flight who feared for their lives too. We can always have time for research later]," he said.


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