TEL AVIV, Israel — A brother and sister from Maumee are trapped in Israel, unable to leave the country.
Amanda and Zack Gergich are inside a hotel in Tel Aviv, running to the bomb shelter every few hours to avoid incoming rocket fire.
They desperately want to leave, but they came to Israel in the first place to get Zack's Russian fiancée a visa to the United States, and with embassies closing down all across the country, they're not sure when they'll be able to leave.
It starts with an unconventional love story between an American and a Russian, Zack and Olga.
"It was online, they've known each other for three years," said Zack's father, Tom Gergich. "They've tried and struggled to get her a visa, obviously the war in Ukraine has complicated that dramatically."
One of the few countries still accepting Russians into their borders is Israel.
So Zack, along with his sister Amanda, made their way to Tel Aviv to meet Olga, arriving Tuesday, Oct. 3, and waking up to the sounds of Hamas' attack only four days later.
"Basically woke up Saturday morning to an air raid siren, wasn't really familiar with what was going on or what was happening," said Amanda on a Zoom call with WTOL 11 from her hotel room in Tel Aviv. "And then shortly after the air raid siren, we heard a loud explosion."
The first of many loud explosions. Only an hour away from the worst of the fighting, Amanda said she, her brother and her future sister in law now spend multiple times a day retreating to the hotel's bomb shelter, avoiding rockets sent over from the Gaza Strip.
"So you're in the stairway, running down, hearing things hit relatively close," said Amanda. "It's just an unreal feeling and I think terrified is the best way to describe it, and that feeling hasn't really subsided since then."
While major U.S. airlines have suspended flights in and out of Israel, the country's airlines are still flying, at least for now.
But Olga can't leave without a visa, so between shellings, the three of them have tried reaching out to U.S. embassies.
"We did call Jerusalem this morning and we received a recording that the office is closed currently," said Amanda. "Then we walked over to the American Embassy in Tel Aviv and a security guard confirmed they were closed today and said he didn't think they would be open tomorrow either with the shelter in place order."
Meaning until an embassy is open, Amanda, Zack and Olga are trapped in a growing warzone.
Meanwhile back home in Maumee, Tom and Lynette Gergich, Zack and Amanda's parents, have lost sleep worrying.
"It's frustrating because we're half a world away and there's nothing we can do to help them," said Tom. "It's not a situation a parent likes to be in."
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