Last Thursday, Sam Heller went to sleep at a Tel Aviv hotel, thinking that any potential military action between Israel and Iran wouldn’t start until after his flight back to the U.S., scheduled for Saturday night. 

He was wrong.

When Home Front Command alerts woke Heller at 3 a.m. on Friday, informing the nation that Israel had launched a preemptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, he quickly booked the first flight out to Paris from Ben Gurion Airport.

“I went straight to the airport, and they locked the doors to Ben-Gurion, and they stopped letting people in,” Heller told Jewish Insider on Tuesday, safely back home in Cleveland. “They’re like, ‘We’re closing our airspace indefinitely. Your flight’s been canceled. All flights are canceled. You can’t get out.’”

Like some 38,000 other foreign visitors stranded in Israel after the country’s preemptive strikes on Iran prompted days of Iranian ballistic missile attacks on Israel, Heller began to try to think of creative ways to leave the country. First he called an Israeli shipping company and asked if he could travel as a stowaway on a cargo ship heading to Cyprus. They told him yes, at a cost of 87,000 Euros for 12 people. He said no.

Then Heller, who was visiting Israel as the last leg of a monthlong trip after graduating from the University of Michigan in May, called a sailing company from which he had rented a boat two years ago. They told him the only boat suitable for travel to Cyprus was out of commission. Another no. Next, a phone call to a company that offers helicopter tours of Israel, thinking helicopters might not be included in the ban on flying. Nope. 

Finally, he tracked down a company that offers private security details in the Middle East. There, he identified a circuitous route out of Israel that took him 36 hours: departing Israel through the Taba border crossing to Egypt, being driven three-and-a-half hours to Sharm el-Sheikh and taking a flight from the Sinai resort town to Istanbul. He left Israel Saturday night after Shabbat and landed in Cleveland at 11 p.m. the next day. That’s a relatively fast trip compared to others who have made it out.

In the days since the Iran-Israel war started, a cottage industry has emerged to help ferry people from Israel to other destinations around the globe. 

Israeli airspace was closed for five days and the U.S. Embassy said it was unable to assist Americans seeking to evacuate. After the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, several State Department-led charter flights brought Americans to Athens — but charter flights were not an option following Israel’s attack on Iran and the ensuing war between the two countries. A State Department spokesperson declined to comment on Tuesday.

El Al canceled all flights out of the country through at least June 23, and foreign carriers pulled out of Israel for longer. Israeli carriers El Al, Arkia and Israir announced on Tuesday that they received permission from the Israeli government to organize repatriation flights to bring back Israelis stranded abroad. The first two flights from Larnaca, Cyprus, landed at Ben Gurion Airport on Wednesday morning. 

The Israeli Tourism Ministry launched an effort on Tuesday to facilitate the departure of tourists from the country, distributing a digital registration form for departure flights from the country. 

But until those flights begin, in WhatsApp threads, Facebook groups and private messages, Americans stuck in Israel are passing along any information they can find to try to help get themselves and their loved ones home. The details are hard to verify. The costs range from expensive to astronomical. 

One graphic shared widely on WhatsApp advertises an emergency evacuation flight from Israel to New York, promising a Wednesday afternoon departure to Eilat and a bus transfer to Sharm el-Sheikh, followed by a charter flight to Milan and then a connection to JFK — “lavish meals included” and “security escorted” — for $2,200 a person. According to the travel company’s website, though, it was already sold out by the time the graphic circulated. Another message advertised a chartered flight from Aqaba, Jordan — near Eilat — to Paris, for $3,000 a person. Abraham Tours, a travel company best known for its hostels in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, advertised a cross-border transfer to Amman for $438. 

Adir Fischer is the vice president of marketing at Magnus Safety, a global search-and-rescue company based in Israel that is arranging boats to take people between Haifa and Larnaca, Cyprus. He can fit about 25 people on a tugboat for a 17-hour journey, costing between 1,000 and 2,000 Euros a person. 

“If you have three kids and a husband, it’s around 7,000 Euros a trip. Not everyone has it liquid, and it’s prepaid,” Fischer told JI on Tuesday. That’s before adding in the cost of flights from Cyprus back to the U.S. Still, he has turned away over 100 people because there isn’t enough room on the boats. 

One American woman who lives in Israel plans to depart on Wednesday on a small boat privately arranged by her husband’s company. They will be traveling with their six-month-old baby and two friends, at a cost of $15,000 for the five people. 

“Either I’m brave, crazy or an idiot. I’m not quite sure yet. But we really want to get out,” she said, requesting anonymity to speak about sensitive travel details. 

Early Sunday morning, Shira Raviv Schwartz woke up to a red alert. She was in Israel visiting her cousin, a trip she takes most summers. Soon after, her apartment building in Tel Aviv shook violently. In the morning, Schwartz saw that the next block had sustained a direct hit from an Iranian ballistic missile. She decided she needed to leave with her husband, their young adult son and her 84-year-old father-in-law. 

“I can’t take another night anxious in the safe room,” Schwartz said from Amman, where the family awaits a flight to Cairo, then another to Athens and finally a flight home to Chicago. 

Large tour groups have been luckier than individuals or families, who have to sort through the options themselves. Birthright Israel arranged for a private luxury cruise ship to bring 1,500 American young adults to Cyprus, where they boarded four planes back to the U.S. chartered by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. 

Jonathan Schanzer, who was leading a delegation hosted by his think tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, worked with the organization’s staff to get the group to Amman via the Allenby Bridge, the only border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan. (This is not an option for Israelis, who are not permitted to pass there.) He considered whether driving to Allenby amid the threat of incoming Iranian missiles was too dangerous but decided to risk it.

“Every security specialist warned me that the time in the war away from a shelter was the dangerous period, and I understood that,” Schanzer told JI. “But we were running out of programming for our participants and they were all sleep-deprived, as was I, from the incessant sirens every night. They didn’t sign up for this.” 

Jerusalem travel agent Mark Feldman said the key is not to tell clients what to do, but to give them options.

“Let him or her make the choice. I would never want to be responsible for somebody taking a 24-hour boat to Cyprus, throwing up the whole way, and emailing me saying it was the worst time of their life,” Feldman, the CEO of Ziontours, told JI. 

His business is at capacity simply trying to get existing clients into and out of Israel. His advice to those without a connection to a travel agent is to stick to trusted sources and avoid the “incredible amount of rumor-mongering.” Mostly, he is advising people to be patient, particularly those who do not have the appetite for a dayslong odyssey through multiple countries. 

But those who are waiting until the airspace reopens are not going to have an easy time leaving, Feldman warned. 

“Hard as it is just calming people down and relaxing them, the problem will come when the airport is open, and the thousands of people that are stuck here won’t have flights to get out,” said Feldman. If the airspace opens on June 23, the flights departing that day will be the ones that were initially scheduled for June 23 — meaning anyone with a June 23 ticket will have a confirmed seat. Everyone who has been stuck in Israel for days will be competing with each other for the empty seats.

“Many people assume, ‘Because I was bumped, I get first priority,’” said Feldman. “You don’t.”

Eight Israelis were killed by Iranian missile strikes in five locations that occurred Sunday night and early Monday morning.

In the central Israeli city of Petach Tikva, five people were killed in a residential building, and in adjacent Bnei Brak, an 80-year-old man was found dead at the site of a missile strike.

Two of the people killed in Petach Tikva were inside their safe room, which was directly hit by a missile. Israel’s Home Front Command explained that safe rooms are built to protect from shrapnel, shards and shock waves, but not a direct hit, which is a rare occurrence. The Home Front Command emphasized that everyone else in the building who was in a safe room was not even injured. Petach Tikva Mayor Rami Grinberg said that the residence was struck by a ballistic missile carrying hundreds of kilograms of explosives.

Tel Aviv sustained two direct missile strikes, one of which lightly damaged the U.S. Embassy Branch Office. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee clarified that “the minor damage to the property were from the shock waves … from the nearby blast … No injuries, thank God!” 

Among the residents evacuated from buildings in Tel Aviv was a six-day-old baby, whose mother was found minutes later.  

In Haifa, three people were found dead under the rubble of a burning building where a missile hit, and about 300 people were evacuated. The Israel Electric Corporation said that the strike damaged its power grid, and that “teams are working on the ground to neutralize safety hazards, in particular the risk of electrocution.” Maritime risk assessment company Ambrey reported a fire at the Haifa Port. 

Israel continued to intercept Iranian and Houthi drones heading to Israel’s north on Monday morning.

About 50 Israeli fighter jets and aircraft struck some 100 military targets in Isfahan in central Iran overnight, the IDF Spokesperson’s Office said on Monday.

Among those targets were missile storage sites, surface-to-surface missile launchers and command centers. Israel has destroyed over 120 missile launchers since the beginning of the operation, about a third of Iran’s total launchers. In one strike overnight, the IAF identified an attempt to launch missiles towards Israel in real time and destroyed the cell and missiles.

The IDF confirmed on Monday that it killed the head of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps intelligence Mohammad Kazemi and his deputy, Hassan Mohaqiq, on Sunday. 

The IDF also struck a command center of the Quds Force, part of the IRGC, for the first time, according to the IDF spokesperson. The Quds Force “planned acts of terror against Israel through the Iranian regime’s proxies in the Middle East.”

Israel also reportedly struck near nuclear sites in Fordow. The Wall Street Journal reported that parts of the underground nuclear enrichment site in Natanz collapsed as a result of Israeli strikes.

The IAF struck Mashhad, in eastern Iran, on Sunday afternoon, destroying an Iranian refueling aircraft. Mashhad, some 2300 km (1429 mi) away from Israel, is the farthest Israeli fighter jets have flown in Iran, and, according to some experts, the farthest in any Israeli operation, ever.

The Israeli Navy used a new air defense system called Thunder Shield and LRAD long-range interceptors on Sa’ar 6 ships to intercept eight Iranian drones overnight. The seaborne systems, which have intercepted some 25 projectiles since the beginning of Operation Rising Lion on Thursday night, are able to intercept UAVs, cruise missiles, sea-to-land missiles and more.

Also Monday, the death toll rose to eight from an Iranian strike on Bat Yam, a city south of Tel Aviv. The total number of Israeli fatalities since the beginning of the operation rose to 24 with almost 600 injured. Iran has shot around 350 missiles at Israel.

The Iranian Health Ministry claimed on Sunday that 224 people had been killed since Israel’s operation began Friday with another 1,277 people hospitalized.