The 310 Lagos pilgrims to Israel returned to Nigeria on Tuesday with some telling tales of how they narrowly escaped fatal attacks in the raging Israel-Hamas war.
In an exclusive chat with Newsmen on Tuesday, a lawyer, Mrs Adebimpe Bada, said they were in Israel when the conflict started but they heard news of attacks on some places they visited after they had departed from those places.
“We heard, I didn’t see, we heard that a particular hotel that we just departed from was attacked about two hours after we left there.
“We visited several places; we were in Bethlehem, we were in Jordan, we were in Nazareth, so, what we learnt was that the last place we left, just barely two or three hours after we left, was attacked.
“The locations we visited that were later attacked were attacked after we had departed from there,” thankful Bada told Newsmen.
Speaking on how the pilgrims received the news of the conflict, the lawyer said the team of the Lagos State Christian Pilgrims Welfare Board led by its Executive Secretary, Mrs Florence Gbafe, “managed the situation properly so much so that we didn’t know what was going on on time.”
Bada further noted that the pilgrims observed that there was tension among the Israelis and there were “blood donation centres that were already established.”
According to The Economic Times, the death toll in the Israel-Hamas war neared 1,900 as Hamas attacks Israeli city of Ashkelon after warning residents to leave as the war enters its fourth day.