Amid Israel-Gaza war, Americans flee on charter flights, cruise ship -

Thousands of U.S. citizens have left Israel since Hamas attacked earlier this month, fleeing by air, land and sea while the country prepares to launch a ground operation in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Over 7,000 U.S. citizens have departed Israel and the West Bank, a State Department spokeswoman told the Washington Post on Wednesday.

The majority have traveled on commercial flights run by the few airlines that were still flying out of Ben Gurion Airport. The State Department said about 1,500 people left on government-assisted charters, including flights to Greece or Germany, and the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Rhapsody of the Seas, which arrived in Cyprus on Tuesday after leaving from Haifa in the north a day earlier. More than 100 U.S. nationals have been evacuated on buses through Jordan, according to an official with Max Security Solutions, a private company that provides travel security and threat monitoring to an array of clients.

“We didn’t know what would happen. We had a bag packed by the door all week,” said Chaim Gobioff, 25, who arrived in Florida from Jerusalem late Sunday with his wife and 2-year-old son.

Gobioff and his family are U.S. citizens who have been living in Israel for three years while he studied Torah at a yeshiva. They arrived in a group of about 270 on a free flight chartered by the state of Florida to bring people directly from Israel to Tampa.

The week leading up to evacuation was surreal for Gobioff. Airlines were canceling flights just as the extent of Hamas’s rampage against civilians was coming to light. He was advised by local leaders to sign up for whatever notification list he could, including the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program, and to fill out a Crisis Intake Form recording requests for assistance from Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

“At any point of your day or night with no warning you hear a huge [air raid] siren, your kid wakes up crying, and you have to head to the bunker” because of the incoming missile or rocket, he said. “That’s not how life should be.”

Late last week, he received emails scheduling his family on some of the State Department flights, but they overlapped with the Jewish sabbath, so he wouldn’t take them. Then he heard about the Florida flights from Fox News and alerted about 20 others, whose families also got seats. The Florida Division of Emergency Management was also publicizing the flights on X, formerly Twitter.

The State Department said it had offered more than 5,600 seats on planes and the chartered cruise ship. As with air travel, cruise passengers signed a promissory note agreeing to repay the government for the trip before boarding. Royal Caribbean didn’t immediately return a message seeking to clarify a statement from chief executive Jason Liberty that said passengers would not be charged.

Most of the State charter flights have operated at about half capacity or less. These flights, which will operate through at least Sunday, have come with many restrictions. Travelers didn’t know if they were going to Athens or Frankfurt ahead of time, making it hard to book connecting flights. Seats were available only to U.S. citizens, their spouses or partners, and their children under age 21.

Initially, people were told to report to the airport with as little as eight hours of notice, although the State Department later arranged rolling departures. Luggage was restricted, no pets were allowed and the flights would cost an unknown amount of money.

According to U.S. law, the State Department provides evacuations “on a reimbursable basis,” so passengers sign promissory notes that show they agree to pay the government back for the equivalent of an economy ticket at the price charged before an emergency.

Gobioff’s flight was free, however, because Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) issued an executive order making evacuation and supply flights to Israel part of the state’s emergency response to the Israel-Gaza war. The flight included 90 children and some pets, Gobioff said. After a delay of about 30 minutes because of a rocket attack, the charter flew first to Portugal for refueling and a crew change before continuing to Florida.

“Everybody knew someone who was either on the front line or killed or a hostage,” he said. “There was an overall sense of sadness and grief.”

DeSantis and his family met the plane around 8 p.m., greeting each of the passengers. As he shook the governor’s hand, Gobioff said he begged him to help the Israeli hostages captured by Hamas. The passengers were greeted by cheers from awaiting representatives of a variety of medical and social service agencies, cellphone providers and even the Department of Motor Vehicles, who were there so people could renew their licenses. But Gobioff said there was no celebration. “There is just such an overwhelming feeling of a heavy heart,” he said.

Although the three largest U.S. carriers have halted flights into Israel, they have added capacity to transport people from Athens back to the United States, and El Al is still running flights from Israel to New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Miami and other U.S. cities.

There are an estimated 500 to 600 Americans stuck in Gaza. The State Department said it had made more than 2,000 phone calls and sent thousands of emails to U.S. citizens and their immediate families there suggesting they may want to move closer to the Rafah crossing because the border to Egypt may open briefly and without much notice.

“We are providing the best information we have to allow U.S. citizens to make their own decisions regarding their safety and security in an incredibly difficult and fluid situation,” a State Department spokeswoman said.

Recently the scene at Ben Gurion Airport has been less chaotic than the days that immediately followed Israel’s declaration of war.

By Oct. 13, things were well-organized. Daria Ebner Moore, a 71-year-old architect from Larchmont, N.Y., returned home on Saturday. She said she had to rebook her flight five times because it was repeatedly canceled.

Moore traveled with the family members she was visiting from Haifa to a suburb of Tel Aviv to be closer to the airport.

“The first thing we had to do was run into the shelter because there was an alarm. For me it was terrifying,” she said.

She was worried she might not make it home any time soon, and so was her husband in New York, who even contacted the office of New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D) to see if he could help with his wife’s return.

“The situation was so fluid and so insane,” Moore said. She eventually flew to Rome on El Al on Oct. 13, and then from Rome to New York on Delta.

She described the Ben Gurion Airport as calm when she entered.

“The first thing you saw were groups from embassies from all around the world,” but in particular the United States, she said. “The representatives were standing with orange vests saying United States Embassy.”

She stopped to speak with them and they told her there was a 90 percent likelihood her flight would depart, and if it didn’t she should come back out to the terminal to speak with them.

“Everything seemed pretty well-organized to me,” she said. “They checked my bag. They checked my passport. Every couple of gates the airport has a shelter and they were very well-marked.”

She said it took about 48 hours of travel to make it back to New York on a plane filled with young mothers and their children. She wept much of the way, worrying about the family she left behind. After arriving in the United States she received another email from the State Department saying she had a seat reserved on the cruise ship going to Cyprus from Haifa.

“I wrote back and said, ‘Thank you very much. I’m already home,’” she said.

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