United Airlines announced on Tuesday that it will resume flights from the U.S. to Israel on July 21, which will make it the first American carrier to resume service to Tel Aviv since the outbreak of the Israel-Iran war. The airline has suspended its service to Israel multiple times since the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks on Israel. 

The lack of international airlines operating in Israel has led to a shortage of flights to meet travelers’ demand and soaring ticket prices, and caused major challenges for tourists attempting to leave Israel at the outset of the war with Iran.

“This resumption is in line with United’s longstanding commitment to serving Tel Aviv,” United said in a statement. “Throughout 2025, United has flown to Tel Aviv more than any other U.S. airline.”

Other carriers, including Delta, American and Lufthansa, have also announced that they will resume flights to Israel, beginning in late August and September. The resumption in air services follows the European Aviation Safety Agency’s (EASA) decision to withdraw flight restrictions for European airlines to Israel, Iran and several other Middle Eastern countries.

Iranian ballistic missiles struck Soroka Hospital in Beersheba in southern Israel and sites in the Tel Aviv area on Thursday morning, wounding 89, including three seriously.

A missile struck the hospital’s old surgical building, severely damaging it and causing what a Soroka spokesperson described as “extensive damage in various areas” of the hospital complex. The surgical building had been recently evacuated in light of the war, and patients and staff had been moved to areas with reinforced walls. Injuries from the strike were light, hospital representatives said.

Soroka is the largest hospital in the Negev, such that the strike left a large swath of Israel without a functioning major medical center. Other hospitals in the area, including Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon and Assuta Medical Center in Ashdod, prepared to take in patients from buildings that were damaged. Magen David Adom provided four intensive care buses, able to transport a total of 23 ICU patients and 50 lightly injured casualties.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar wrote that “The Iranian regime fired a ballistic missile at a hospital. The Iranian Regime deliberately targets civilians. The Iranian regime is committing war crimes. The Iranian regime has no red lines.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on X that “Iran’s terrorist dictators shot missiles at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba and the civilian population in the center of the country. We will make the dictators in Tehran pay the full price.”

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that the price would be to destabilize the Islamic Republic’s regime.

“The prime minister and I instructed the IDF to increase the force of the attacks against strategic targets in Iran and against governmental targets in Tehran to remove the threats to the State of Israel and undermine the Ayatollahs’ regime,” he stated.

Iranian news agency IRNA claimed that the target of the strike was an IDF intelligence outpost in Beersheba’s HiTech Park, which is over a mile away from the hospital. A television channel tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said that the missile was aimed at a “military hospital” in response to strikes on “civilian hospitals” in Gaza.

In the same 30-missile barrage, Iranian missiles struck a school in Holon. No children were present, because schools have been closed across Israel since Friday, but three elderly residents of adjacent buildings were wounded in serious condition, in addition to 62 others with minor to moderate injuries.

Another missile struck near the Ramat Gan Diamond Exchange, abutting Tel Aviv, causing minor injuries to 21 people and damage to 20 buildings in the neighborhood, which includes some of Israel’s tallest buildings.

Shrapnel struck Sheba Medical Center, Israel’s biggest hospital, also in Ramat Gan.

Overnight, the IDF intercepted several drones launched by Iran at Israel towards central and northern Israel. 

Jordanian authorities reported that an Iranian drone fell in a shopping center north of Amman, damaging a car and a bus station. Syrian media reported that an Iranian drone was shot down over the country.

The IDF struck an inactive nuclear reactor near Arak in Iran early Thursday after sending warnings to civilians in the area. The IDF Spokesperson’s Office said the strike included “the structure of the reactor’s core seal, which is a key component in plutonium production.”

“The strike targeted the component intended for plutonium production, in order to prevent the reactor from being restored and used for nuclear weapons development,” the IDF Spokesperson’s Office said.

The IDF also gave details of strikes on the active nuclear site in Natanz, which “contained components and specialized equipment used to advance nuclear weapons development and projects designed to accelerate the regime’s nuclear program.” 

In addition, 40 IAF fighter jets struck dozens of military targets in Tehran and other parts of the country, including factories manufacturing ballistic missile and air-defense components, as well as air-defense batteries, surface-to-surface missile storage sites, radar systems and other targets.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir sent a letter of encouragement to IDF soldiers and commanders on Thursday, saying that they are “writing a new chapter in history for the State of Israel and the entire Middle East.”

”Thanks to a decisive and impressive surprise opening strike, we have achieved tremendous goals: We eliminated the regime’s command echelons, delivered a deep blow to the capabilities used for the Iranian nuclear program, identified and struck missile launchers, and we are continuing and increasing the strength of our operations as necessary,” Zamir wrote.

Iranian news reported that the country’s military shot down a second Israeli Hermes Drome. The IDF confirmed that Iran downed the first UAV a day earlier.

Israel’s Home Front Command loosened restrictions on Israelis on Wednesdays, allowing people to return to workplaces with safe rooms and for up to 30 people to attend synagogue at a time. Schools and kindergartens remained closed.

A poll published by the Israel Democracy Institute found that 70% of Israelis support the campaign launched against Iran last week, while 10% support the campaign but think the timing is wrong and 13.5% oppose it. Among Israeli Jews, 82% support the strikes, whereas only 11% of Israeli Arabs do, according to the poll. Jewish Israelis across the political spectrum support the operation: 57% of those who self-identify as left-wing, 75% of centrists and 90% on the right.

Though in past polls, most Jewish Israelis did not think Israel should strike Iran without help from the U.S., this week 69% thought it was the right decision. In addition, 68% of Jewish Israelis thought that Netanyahu’s motivation behind launching the operation against Iran was security-related, while 68% of Arab Israelis thought it was political.

The poll was conducted this Sunday-Tuesday among 594 Israelis, with a 3.61% margin of error.

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.”