When Israel launched Operation “Rising Lion” to take out Iran’s nuclear program on June 13, Yisroel Maline was in the United States visiting family. Since moving to Israel at 16 years old, Maline hasn’t returned to the U.S. often, and with his wife due to give birth to their sixth child soon, he decided to take the solo trip abroad before the baby was born, knowing that afterward, he wouldn’t be able to travel.
That was close to two weeks ago, and, with Iran launching ballistic missiles at Israel nearly every day since leading up to a shaky ceasefire agreement this week, and with flights in and out of Israel greatly restricted, he has still not been able to return home to his wife and children. Being apart from them during a time like this has been challenging. “She’s going through a really difficult time,” Maline said of his wife. “There kimat (almost) hasn’t been a single night that she hasn’t been waking up all the kids and bringing them down into the bomb shelters, and I’m not around to help.”
Maline is one of an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 Israelis who were left stranded abroad when Israeli airspace closed after the conflict with Iran began. Five days later, on June 18, El Al, in compliance with the guidelines of Israel’s Ministry of Transport and Road Safety, began operating repatriation flights for Israelis stuck abroad, as part of an effort to bring back stranded citizens called Operation “Safe Return.”
To be assigned a seat on one of these flights, one must fill out a registration form and have already had an El Al flight canceled due to the conflict. Seat assignments, according to El Al’s website, are based on the date the original flight was canceled, one’s current destination, seat availability, and “operational restrictions and country approvals.” Exceptional medical humanitarian cases can fill out an additional form and may be given priority on an El Al repatriation flight, even if they did not have a flight canceled with the airline originally.
Israel’s smaller airlines, including Israir, Air Haifa, and Arkia, have also operated repatriation flights in the last week, subject to the same guidelines, which include limiting the number of planes allowed to land at any given time to avoid large crowds at the airport. Repatriation flights on all four airlines, though sometimes delayed in the air due to missile fire, have continued to bring back Israelis from abroad in the past week.
With so many Israelis stranded, though, not everyone has yet been given a seat on one of these planes. Avigyle Eliwatt, who has lived in Israel since she was four and who came to the U.S. for a wedding shortly before the conflict with Iran broke out, has yet to find a way back home. Both she and Maline have booked regular El Al flights for next week, but they know these flights may be canceled. In their latest update Tuesday morning, El Al said all flights until July 22 have been closed to any new reservations “until the security situation is clarified and out of a desire to provide a solution to Israelis whose flights to Israel have been canceled.” U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, an Iranian attack on a U.S. air base in Qatar, and the uncertain status of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire announced by President Donald Trump on Monday have caused frequent fluctuations in the security situation and many precautionary airspace closures over the last week.
For Maline, getting home in time for the birth of his child means that if his flight next week is canceled, he, like many other Israelis, will pursue other options. These include attempting to reach Israel by land or sea, instead of air. Of the 71,608 Israelis who returned to Israel between June 13 and June 21, more than 39,000 of them came in via land crossings, according to Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority, and more than 6,000 came by boat. 25,333 Israelis were brought back via repatriation flights.
Returning to Israel by crossing the border from Jordan or Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula is not encouraged by Israel’s National Security Council, which has both locations under a level four travel warning, indicating a “high threat.” But this hasn’t stopped the thousands of people who have passed through these crossings, not only coming to Israel but leaving as well.
Sophie Gutstein has been living in Israel for two years, and when the airspace closed, she was scheduled to fly to the U.S. with her husband and daughter for her sister’s wedding a week later. “We came to terms with the idea that probably we weren’t going,” she said. Then they learned about the option of traveling through Egypt, so Gutstein, her husband, their one-year-old daughter, and a couple other relatives decided to try it.
With so many crossing the border at once, the line at the Taba Border Crossing from Eilat into Egypt took three hours. After that was a ten-hour bus ride through South Sinai to Cairo. “If you were to travel the northern road through the Sinai, you could get to Cairo in four hours,” said Gutstein. “But the northern part of the Sinai is davka (specifically) the part that’s really not safe. So instead, they took us the southern route.”
After reaching Cairo, Gutstein and her family took two flights before reaching their final destination. Including flight delays, the entire trip took 50 hours.
But it’s not just those who live in Israel like Gutstein who are trying to leave the country. According to Israel’s Ministry of Tourism, as of June 17, there were around 38,000 tourists in Israel. Since then, some have left via land crossings or by boat, or on the outbound flights that took off this week, the first since the beginning of the conflict with Iran. But these flights are as of this week limited to only 50 people per plane.
Yaakov A., who has asked that his real name not be published, is among those who have not yet been able to leave the country. He flew from New Jersey to Israel for the bris of his grandson days before the conflict began and has been in the country ever since. Following the guidance of Agudas Israel, whom he said has been “extremely helpful,” he registered with the U.S. State Department as well as with the Israeli government. He has a flight out of Israel this week, and, though he isn’t sure the plane will actually take off, he’s okay with that. “The kind of efforts that the American government is [making] should be triaged to take care of people who have real humanitarian needs, which I believe they do,” he said. “I’m here with my children. They would have me here as long as I want to be here, and I’m not under any duress.” He added, “I’m glad that no one was wasting resources airlifting me out.”
Among those also unable to leave Israel are over 1,000 yeshiva and seminary students, according to an estimate from Rabbi Reuven Taragin, Dean of Overseas Students at Yeshivat Hakotel in Jerusalem’s Old City. “We’re working on many different ways of getting people home, both keeping our students and parents updated about the ways that are being advertised, and also trying to initiate ways ourselves,” he said. “Together with other yeshivas and seminaries, we’re trying to arrange a boat for yeshiva and seminary students, which hasn’t yet worked out.” Rabbi Taragin added that he is working with Masa, which supports young adults from the diaspora in Israel, to try to arrange flights out of Israel for students.
In the meantime, Rabbi Taragin said, Hakotel is “continuing to offer everything we always offered, as far as learning and food and dormitory, the full experience, and in addition, we’ve added more experiential fun activities” as chizuk (encouragement) for the students.
Summer camps face similar adaptive challenges, with many camps in the U.S. and elsewhere expecting many Israeli campers and staff, and many Israeli camps expecting campers and staff from the diaspora. Dvora Liss, director of Kayitz Bakibbutz (also called Camp Shluhot), a summer camp on Kibbutz Shluhot in Israel, said in a normal summer, around 50% of her campers and staff come from outside of Israel. “Right now, we have 41 kids that are supposed to come from the United States and outside of Israel, and England, and we don’t know if they’re coming,” she said. “So it could be that we’ll have a camp without them.” For staff, there may be a more innovative solution. “There are many kids here in Israel who were supposed to work in summer camps in America, and they’re stuck here, so they’ve already turned to me and asked if they could come work here. That will kind of solve that problem,” she said.
With staff of Israeli and diasporic camps potentially switching places, in many ways, all of those unable to get into or leave Israel have switched places as well. “It’s very lonely, honestly, because I feel like I’m there, and I should be there to help,” said Avigyle Eliwatt, who works as an EMT for Magen David Adom, Israel’s national emergency service. “I should be there with my people, and I’m just sitting in the middle of Teaneck, and it’s quiet and disconnected.”
She added, “I feel a little bit guilty about not being there.”
Maline feels this way too. “I left Eretz Yisrael, and then the door…closed on me, and I can’t get back there, and I want so desperately to get back there,” he said. Not being able to support his wife and children at a time like this is difficult for him.
Those who don’t live in Israel have found themselves in an opposite situation, appreciating the proximity they aren’t used to. “Since we have children living here, the privilege of being here and being with them in real time to experience this, as opposed to just worrying from afar, felt like a great gift from the Almighty, and there’s nowhere else I would want to be when Israel is going through something like this,” said Yaakov. He added, “We were in history’s epicenter.”
Rabbi Taragin hopes the yeshiva and seminary students still in Israel have developed this awareness as well. “We hope the students will gain an appreciation of being part of Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael at this challenging time on the ground, and also to appreciate Israel, the great gift that we have,” he said. He doesn’t want them to take Israel “for granted.”
Those who have lived there for most of their lives don’t want to, either. “We don’t realize the opportunity that we have to be able to travel to Eretz Yisrael. People take it for granted, but in actuality, we’re sitting in galus, and now I really feel it,” said Maline. Contrastingly, Eliwatt recalled reading stories of people who were in the U.S. when World War II broke out who traveled back to Europe to be with their families. “I remember thinking, ‘What is wrong with them? There’s a war, why would they go back?’” Though her situation is completely different, she said she now understands.
“Three buildings down from where my brother lived was hit by a missile, and the whole building collapsed,” Eliwatt said. Still, “the only thing I want to do right now is go home.”
