Americans in Israel Scrambling to Get Home Find Few Available Flights

By Reuvain Borchardt

NEW YORK — In the days following the worst attack in Israel’s history, Americans and other foreign nationals and dual citizens scrambled to leave a country at war, but found chaos and few flight options and chaos at Ben Gurion Airport.

Many U.S. and international airlines quickly canceled flights to and from Israel, leaving El Al as the only option for direct flights to the U.S. for the many Jews who had visited Israel over Sukkos, or were studying in seminary and now desperate to flee the Hamas rocket barrages. Several other airlines were flying to other countries, from where it was possible to connect to the U.S., but those flights were filling up quickly as well.

Constituents who reached out to their congressmembers, senators, and local officials were generally told to register at a State Department site, though no instant solutions were provided.

The State Department’s immediate objective, Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) told Hamodia on Tuesday, is “to get a full counting of who’s in Israel right now. Obviously, when people go, not everybody registers with the Department of State. Given the circumstances, you want to try and get as many people on board, get them to register … So we have their contact information, and we can communicate with them at an appropriate time.”

Lawler, who represents heavily Jewish Rockland County, says more than 100 constituents have reached out to him about themselves or family stranded in Israel.

New York Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein, who represents large Jewish communities in Boro Park and Midwood, hosted an event in his office Tuesday with Rep. Dan Goldman and staff of Rep. Yvette Clarke, both New York Democrats whose districts overlap with Eichenstein’s.

Simone Kanter, communications director for Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), told Hamodia they are seeking to “collect information on folks who are stuck abroad – reaching out to family here, making sure folks who might not have access to internet have a designated point of contact stateside and have liaison a here.”

“Obviously there’s a lot of frustration, and a lot of people are scared,” Kanter said.

Goldman himself had spent Simchas Torah in Israel with his wife and kids for a family bar mitzvah, though they were able to get out on a flight after sheltering from Hamas rocket fire in their hotel’s interior stairwell.

Lawler said he has been speaking with Biden administration officials about two possible options for getting the stranded Americans out: getting commercials airlines to resume flights to Israel, which may require deals with labor unions and the federal government indemnifying airlines from the risk of flying in a war zone; or having military planes conduct evacuations.

While an exact number of Americans who wish to leave Israel is unavailable (at least until everyone signs up with the State Department), Kanter notes that the “sheer number of people we might need to bring back makes military evacuations logistically problematic.”

“My question to the administration,” Lawler said, “is I’ve been pushing for two days for an answer on what they’re doing to deal with the airlines. And I’ve not gotten an answer. They telling me they’re looking into it, which you know, I mean, great. But there’s a war. So let’s get an answer.”

Meanwhile, the frustration is mounting for people stranded in the danger zone and their families.

Yaakov, a Boro Park resident, was stuck in Israel with his wife and nine children after visiting Israel for Sukkos.

They had a Delta flight Monday, but that was initially canceled and postponed to next week Tuesday. He went about looking for an earlier flight, though from conversations with his friends, knew he was lucky to have a flight in hand for the following week.

“I was also lucky that the guy whose apartment we reneted let us stay an extra week,” Yaakov said. “Other people we know who rented apartments were forced to leave and find other accommodations.”

But then Delta canceled all flights until Oct. 31, and Yaakov had to try to scramble to get home.

At 11 p.m. Monday, he found one seat on a plane his friend had tickets for, and he gave it to his teenaged son starting his first semester in a new yeshiva. “The only catch was we had to be in the airport by 1 a.m. for the 7 a.m. flight. We just jumped into a taxi and went straight to the airport,” Yaakov said. “And when we got there, it was a scene of total chaos. Kids crying, desperate people begging for flights. It looks like a movie from a war zone. Which this is.”

Several hours after Yaakov returned to his apartment, air-raid sirens went off. His terrified two-year-old daughter ran inside from the porch where she was standing, fell and hit her forehead and had to be hospitalized.

“When we got there, to the hospital, they were just bringing in four people after a rocket strike in Beitar,” Yaakov says. “There was a child with shrapnel wounds. Another kid was being treated for shock. The hospital was a real war zone.”

Yaakov said he was hoping to get tickets on a special flight Wednesday chartered by Tzedek Association to London from Eilat Airport.

Tzedek President Moshe Margaretten told Hamodia the charter flight — a Czech plane, with a Czech pilot and crew, coordinated by British travel agency Feldan Travel — had room for 180 passengers at a cost 700 pounds (around $850 dollars) each. Bus travel was also to be arranged from Yerushalayim to the Eilat airport.

“Other people took flights to Greece or Cyprus and have been stuck for more than 24 hours and can’t get a connecting flight,” Margaretten said. “We chose London as the destination because, at least as of now, there are more than enough flights from London to New York to get people home before Shabbos.”

Margaretten said two previous attempts at a charter plane from other European countries were canceled because it was impossible to get crew.

He said he is working with politicians to try to push for military flights, but that the White House is first requiring data on the number of stranded citizens

Eichenstein told Hamodia that more than 70 constituents stopped by his office in the first three hours of an all-day event at his office Tuesday.

“Over last 48 hours I have been inundated with calls from hundreds of constituents who are stuck in Israel,” Eichenstein said. “Congressmembers Goldman and Clarke will be applying maximum pressure to the State Department to ensure that all their constituents are able to come home.

The State Departmen must ensure that each and every citizen arrives home safely – be it via commercial airlines, charter planes, or military jets if necessary. It is the responsibility of the U.S. government to keep its citizens safe.”

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rborchardt@hamodia.com