As Iran’s ballistic missiles pummel Israel’s urban areas turning residents into evacuees, Israel’s hotels – despite tourist decline – meet the challenge.
By Motti Verses
(This article first appeared in The Jerusalem Post)
Friday morning in Be’er Sheva this June, 51-year-old Sima Elimeleh huddled with her husband Avi and their daughters in their apartment’s safe room as air raid sirens echoed throughout the city.
Heightening the family’s anxiety was the previous day’s ballistic missile strike from Iran scoring a direct hit on the nearby Soroka Medical Center, that provides medical services to approximately one million residents of the South. Then, when the news broke that another missile had hit their normally quiet neighborhood causing severe damage to numerous buildings, and local residents reeling from shock began to assessing the destruction, Elimeleh, the General Manager of the Leonardo Negev Hotel, quickly shifted gears. Asking her husband to manage preparations for their family’s Shabbat (Friday night) dinner, Elimelah Whats App’ed her hotel management team to report immediately to the hotel. Despite being only three months in her new position, she acted like a seasoned professional and arrived there within ten minutes. Her team wasn’t far behind.
Within an hour, the hotel had transformed. Guest rooms were readied, public spaces organized, refreshments laid out, and even a kindergarten was established. “We at Fattal Hotels have experience hosting 20,000 evacuees since October 7,” Elimelah explains. “But when it’s your own hometown, people you know, whose children go to school with yours, it hits differently – it’s personal. I felt a sense of mission. We were determined to do everything we could for those who had lost their homes and their sense of safety.”
Minutes before the ceasefire was announced of the ‘12 Day War’, Be’er Sheva suffered another deadly attack, claiming four lives. A second wave of evacuees soon arrived at Elimeleh’s hotel. By nightfall, 500 civilians were housed there. Many are expected to remain for at least a month.
The events of October 7 and the ensuing war with Hamas displaced over 200,000 Israelis, particularly from communities near Gaza and later from the north. Many were sheltered in hotels and short-term rentals. What began as temporary arrangements soon extended into months, testing the limits of logistics, finances, and emotional resilience.
Hoteliers found themselves in dual roles: offering standard hospitality services while simultaneously meeting humanitarian needs. Guest rooms were repurposed for long-term stays. Support services, mental health care, educational programming, childcare was coordinated in part by the government.
The hard-earned experience from those months proved invaluable when Iranian missile strikes targeted Israeli cities this June. Since the outbreak of Israel’s military campaign with Iran, the country’s tourism industry has faced a dramatic downturn. Regional tensions, heightened travel advisories, flight cancellations and general insecurity have nearly brought international tourism to a standstill. Even domestic tourism, especially in the north and along the southern coast has evaporated. In this vacuum, many hotels saw housing evacuees as both a moral imperative and a practical solution.
One person well-positioned to manage this challenge is Romi Gorodisky, Deputy General Manager of the Israel Hotel Association. Known as a behind-the-scenes powerhouse, Gorodisky has led crisis responses since 1996, when the IDF launched ‘Operation Grapes of Wrath’ against Hezbollah. On October 7, she helped establish a command center to oversee hotel placements for evacuees from both the Gaza and northern borders. When ‘Operation Rising Lion’ against Iran began, she launched a new center. “In the Iron Swords operation, launched following the October 7, 2023 massacre, everything was centrally coordinated via the National Evacuation, Care, and Casualties Authority (EWC); this time, the responsibility shifted to municipalities,” she says.
While the previous efforts focused on peripheral communities, this round of war effected Israel’s urban centers. “Of the 15,000 evacuees, 10,000 were placed in hotels,” she explains. “The rest stayed with friends or family. We worked with municipalities to place people close to their original neighborhoods, preserving familiar environments and community continuity,” she says. Her team’s real-time ops room and inventory system – another possible Israeli innovation – allowed for rapid, efficient placement of evacuees. Their proven-under-pressure methodology may well serve as a model for crisis management globally. It would also do the industry good by being studied at hotel schools.
Among the displaced is 72-year-old Danny Sadeh, a former tourism correspondent for the Israeli daily, Yedioth Aharonot, who has reviewed hotels worldwide and locally for 20 years. He was evacuated just hours after a missile struck a building near his Tel Aviv apartment. “I found myself with my partner in a 14-square-meter room at the Brown Bobo Hotel, along with 100 other civilians,” he recounts. “The room is small, but the food is excellent and the staff is incredibly supportive.” Sadeh, who has stayed in over 250 hotels in 40 countries, says this stay is unlike any other. “This is the first time I’ve had to bring my dog. Running to the basement during sirens, especially when the elevators are full, isn’t pleasant. Much of our time is spent on paperwork related to our damaged apartment. This is not a hotel stay I ever imagined.”
Home away from Home. Following the destruction of their home from an Iranian missile, the Brown Bobo urban hotel in Tel Aviv provides for evacuees this guest room. (Photo: Max Kovalsky)
So how are hoteliers in metropolitan Tel Aviv responding to this unexpected influx of guests? Dr. Eran Ketter, Head of the Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management at Kinneret Academic College, offers some perspective:
“From January to April 2025, Tel Aviv hotels saw only 45% occupancy, due to the sluggish return of international tourism. The arrival of evacuees has improved this, offering hotels a much-needed revenue stream, at least temporarily.”
Still, challenges remain. Many Tel Avivian evacuees will struggle to find alternate housing in a city where real estate values are comparable to major global hubs like Paris and New York. “However, the hospitality industry has adapted. In 2024, many hotels experimented with hybrid models, hosting evacuees alongside regular guests. While this brings operational challenges and concerns about guest experience, most people seem to understand the unique reality we’re living in. To avoid friction, larger hotel chains may designate specific properties for evacuees while reserving others for tourists. Flexibility will be key,’’ concludes Ketter.
Ask any Israeli hotelier, and they’ll tell you:
“We long for peace and the day when tourism resumes in full force. Until then, we will continue to serve evacuees quietly, professionally, and with compassion.”
Feature picture: These were once Israeli Homes! Apartment complex in Tel Aviv following a direct missile strike launched from Iran on Sunday, June 22, 2025. (Photo: AP/Oded Balilty).
About the writer:
The writer, Motti Verses, is a Travel Flash Tips publisher. His travel stories are published on THE TIMES OF ISRAEL https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/author/motti-verses/. And his hospitality analysis reviews on THE JERUSALEM POST, are available on his Linkedin page LinkedIn Israelhttps://il.linkedin.com › motti-verse…Motti Verses – Publisher and Chief Editor – TRAVEL FLASH TIPSAnd his hospitality analysis reviews on THE JERUSALEM POST, are available on his Linkedin page LinkedIn Israelhttps://il.linkedin.com › motti-verse…Motti Verses – Publisher and Chief Editor – TRAVEL FLASH TIPS.
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