While terrified citizens typically flee from war zones – not Israelis who hurriedly flock back home from abroad.
By David E. Kaplan
Watching the news and seeing the long lines of cars trying to escape Teheran, Iran’s capital of 10 million and from there who knows where, and recalling how during the Syrian civil war a conflict that began in 2011, where at least 6.7 million fled abroad, Israel must be one of the few countries – maybe the only country – when at a time of war and extreme danger, Israelis abroad are queuing up to return!
What is more, with Ben Gurion Airport closed to passenger traffic since the war began on Friday 13, June, 2025, they are trying any means to return – short of crossing the Sahara on a camel – and are prepared to pay exorbitant prices to do so.
Despite the terror and the trauma, the character of the Israeli is to be at home, in one’s country, with one’s family, with one’s people and braving this war beyachad – “together”.
Amit Hari, a licensed captain and the owner of the Sailor Yacht Club in Herzliya told Times of Israel (ToI) that his phone has not stopped ringing since Israel closed its airspace leaving more than 100,000 to 150,000 Israelis stranded abroad.
Receiving “thousands of calls” from Israelis desperately seeking an avenue to return home from Cyprus, “I told my wife I feel like Schindler, I have a notebook here with lists, and basically, I’m trying to help anyone that I can who wants to come with us on our yachts to Larnaca and anyone who wants to return with us to the port of Herzliya.”
Hari, whose sailing club is operating three yachts out of the port of Herzliya to Larnaca, says:
“It is not an easy trip of 30 hours on a yacht with people who are not used to sailing. It can be very challenging for them.”
It’s a bigger challenge for the well-over 100,000 Israelis stranded abroad in a rush to “get home”.
With Israel’s airspace closed for arrivals and departures as Iranian missiles continue to rain down bringing uncertainty as to when regular commercial flights may resume, on Wednesday, Israel together with local airlines, launched a repatriation operation. It is expected to take weeks. My friend Stanley Milliner stuck in Greece jokes in a WhatsApp:
“It’s a long way to swim!”
Hundreds stranded abroad and in Israel have headed online, seeking maritime travel solutions via social media channels. On Facebook, people have opened multiple groups dedicated to finding sea-based travel options – mainly out of Israeli ports in Herzliya and Haifa – but prices have steepened as demand has shot up.
One high-profile Israeli “marooned” in Cyprus was none other than the former editor of The Jerusalem Post, US-born, Yaakov Katz who was on a flight from London to Tel Aviv set to land at 3:30 a.m. at Ben Gurion Airport when Israel launched its surprise attack.
“Minutes from landing,” Yaacov posted on X, “we were suddenly diverted to Cyprus and stayed on the plane for a few hours.” Stranded in Paphos for two days, he says “everywhere I went — from the streets to the hotel to the Chabad House that opened its doors within hours — I met Israelis who had one goal: get back home. Not to safety. To Israel.”
Working on ways to “get back” to Israel that included riskier routes via Egypt or Jordan, Yaakov received a call to be in Limassol within an hour as a “tugboat was leaving for Israel,” charging NIS 6,000 ($1,700) for the trip.
“Nine of us squeezed onto a vessel captained by Eli, a veteran Israeli sailor who didn’t ask questions.”
Among his group were “a brother and sister who are farmers and grow flowers in the Arava. They’d been in Holland on a sales trip. The brother insisted on returning to report for reserves. Another was a CEO from Karmiel. His company has 100 employees and global orders he is now fighting to fulfill, despite a country under fire.”
“No one asked if it was safe,” he wrote on social media. “But that’s not how Israelis think.”
On Wednesday, Israel launched a phased airlift operation to bring home its citizens. Following the first aircraft bringing home stranded Israelis, returnees expressed relief to be back on Israeli soil. Despite the nightly volleys of Iranian missiles, hotelier Yaakov Bogen, 66, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) after landing back in Israel that he would rather be at home with family than abroad.
“I belong here, and unfortunately we get used to these fights and war, but we prefer to be here, to support as much as we can.”
Also expressing relief to be back after her flight was redirected to Cypris, stylist 40-year-old Tali Gehorsam, explained:
“This is home. There’s no other place. To be overseas and to watch the news is not a nice feeling.”
At the most harrowing of times, Israeli citizens living abroad aren’t running from a war at home, but to it. From Athens to New York, Israelis are typically rushing to airports and diving into online chat groups for help, desperate to make their way “home”. It was the same when after Hamas attacked on October 7,2023. Whether these Israelis abroad were yearning to serve in a military reserve unit or to volunteer to shuttle supplies to those in need, they wanted to be in their country and serve. Yaakov Swisa, a 42-year-old father of five, said nobody called and asked him to return to Israel to fight, but he felt he had no choice. He had served for 15 years, and he said when he learned that his former army roommate was among those murdered at the Nova Music Festival, he wanted to rejoin his reserve unit, even if that meant leaving his family and his job in Los Angeles.
“I’ve been crying for two, three days. Enough. That’s it. I am ready to fight,” he said. “What else would I do … while my friends are being buried in Israel?”
It was the same with 18-year-old college student Adam Jacobs from New Jersey. Born and raised in the U.S. and for years traveled every summer to visit family in Israel, said when he learned his cousin was also among those murdered, he decided to put his life in the US on hold to depart for Israel and volunteer his services in whatever way he could.
“I couldn’t live with myself if I stayed here,” Jacobs said. “It’s never been this bad.”
The civic camaraderie was infectious.Although Londoner Israel Lawrence hadn’t been formally called up, the 27-year-old who was born in Israel, felt compelled to join his fellow soldiers, many already on the front lines, and help his family members, who were living in terror and chaos.
“I want to be honest with you, I’m scared,” said Lawrence, a trained rifleman who made his way to Israel via Cyprus in 2023 like others are now doing in 2025. “All the guys I’m with are terrified, but we are trained, and we’ll do the best we can.”
“Doing the best we can” is exactly how Israelis have responded since the barbaric invasion on October 7, both in Israel in showing extraordinary resilience and those abroad in trying by any means and expense to return home.
As I write, my cellphone bleeps. It’s a message from my stranded buddies Stanley Milliner and his wife Toni in response to my enquiry for an update as to their ‘Herculean’ – being in Greece – efforts in returning to Israel. Planning this trip three months earlier to “meet in the Med” with their South African family from Cape Town, Alan and Silvana Silverman, they left on the 12th June for Athens only to wake the next morning “with the world turned on its head.” It was an apt choice of words for this was war on another level. After nearly 2 years of heavy fighting since the October 7 attacks with the “proxies”, Israel was taking on the head of the snake – Iran – and all “our children and our grandchildren back in Israel running to bomb shelters.” With their days of ‘vacation’ in Greece tuning into the news all day and, “…texting the kids for an “all’s well” message,” they set about devising a way to return home. Their efforts reveal in this latest WhatsApp:
“…It will take a week if nothing else goes wrong….Flying from Athens to Larnaca and then a Mano cruise ship home next Saturday.”
Yesterday morning, the cruise ship Crown Iris, operated by Mano Shipping, docked at the Port of Ashdod, carrying approximately 2,000 Israeli citizens rescued from Limassol, Cyprus. There are thousands back in Limassol waiting to follow. One of them is Hanit Azulay. She told Associated Press:
“My little daughter is over there; my family is over there and we are regular [sic] with this; it’s been nearly two years in this crazy situation…”
Where else in the world with ballistic missiles reining down on a civilian population where hospitals are a target like what happened in Be’er-Sheva where Soroka Hospital that serves around 1 million people living in southern Israel sustained extensive damage in a strike, people abroad flock back. No myth like in Homer’s Odyssey, Israelis, like stranded warriors in foreign lands have one thing in mind – to return home.
As Israeli journalist and author Yaakov Katz put it:
“…..one goal: get back home. Not to safety. To Israel.”
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