Muscat: The telephone ring kept breaking the eerie silence as worried relatives and friends kept calling Gulf News reporter Abbas Al Lawati's Muscat residence to enquire about his whereabouts from the time television channels broke the news about the Israel navy's attack on the Freedom Flotilla.
Read special coverage of Freedom Flotilla
Gulf News statement on the Israeli attack
"We are worried and praying for his safe return," Abbas's mother Iffat Al Lawati told Gulf News. The mother of three looked worried for her son.
Abbas, youngest of three, is covering the Freedom Flotilla for Gulf News and is onboard one of the vessels when the Israeli navy attacked them.
"I was so worried that I had told him not to go, but my brother and other son asked me not to stop his wish and I relented," she said, her voice choking.
"He is the youngest so I probably worry more about him," she added.
At the same time the soft-spoken mother said that she was proud of her son for taking such a brave decision.
"He knew I was worried so he kept calling me since he left for the mission (Freedom Flotilla), I am really proud that he has taken this brave decision," she said.
Abbas called his mother at 8pm Oman time on Sunday and assured her that all was well. "When I asked him what if they attack you? He said that it was not possible," she said.
In the morning, Abbas's father Mustafa Al Lawati opened his computer around 8am and saw an email from his son timed 3:15am.
"He had written that they were surrounded by the Israeli naval ships and this could be his last email as communications could be cut off," he recalled.
Read Abbas Al Lawati's blog about the Freedom Flotilla
To reassure his worrying mother, Abbas did tell them that they could be taken in by the Israelis.
Follow Abbas Al Lawati on twitter (@allawati
However, he told his mother in that case he was going to be deported. "Don't worry, at the most it would take a week," he reassured his mother over the phone.
Iffat said that all of her three children were in Dubai. "It is only me and my husband here and we keep worrying," she said pointing at her husband.
She was, however, thankful to her husband's cousins and relatives for standing by them in this hour of crisis. One of Abbas's cousins, Ali, was at his residence coordinating with relatives and answering calls.
"We hope that he will soon return to Dubai safe and sound," he wished.
