With Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport closed amid the constant barrage of ballistic missiles from Iran, Israelis trying to get home — and visitors trying to leave — are stymied.
More than 100,000 Israelis are stranded abroad, according to the Times of Israel, so the Israeli government has created an online registration for special one-way flights to Tel Aviv on El Al set to begin Thursday. Some Israelis are trying to return by land via Jordan or Egypt, but on Monday Israel’s National Security Council issued a Level 4 travel warning advising citizens to avoid both countries, according to Haaretz.
Then there are the people desperate to leave Israel amid an escalating war. On Tuesday afternoon, Israel’s Ministry of Tourism announced online registration for tourists seeking to leave.
But some foreign nationals as well as Israelis, have turned to a last resort: private vessels. Birthright Israel, for example, packed a cruise ship with 1,500 participants to leave Ashdod for Cyprus on Tuesday.
Haaretz reported that hundreds of people showed up Tuesday morning at Herzliya’s marina, looking to board yachts sailing to Cyprus. Groups have popped up on Facebook and WhatsApp to coordinate between passengers, boat owners and captains.
“It’s all pretty chaotic,” David Meyers of Belmont told J. by phone on Tuesday.
The Peninsula resident was an officer in the Israeli Navy in the 1980s. Today, he works in the clean energy sector and is a leader in the pro-democracy, anti-Netanyahu group formed by Israeli expats called UnXeptable.
People have been contacting him since Friday, he said, asking for help: Does he know how to find a boat leaving Israel? Can he help them read the Hebrew in chat groups they have located?
“I found myself forwarding the same information three or four times,” he said. “A lot of people were looking for the same things. I saw there was a need to organize all this information.”
On Monday, Meyers formed a WhatsApp group that acts as a clearinghouse for all the information he can find about boats leaving from or sailing to Israel.
“Whenever I see vessels leaving or heading to Israel, I post it,” he said. Those who join the group see all the messages as they are posted, along with how to contact boat owners offering rides.
The name of his WhatsApp group: Exodus 2025.
The group is private, but anyone can join with an invitation via this link.
So far about 30 people have joined the group, with phone numbers in Silicon Valley, the East Coast and Israel.
The messages tend to come and go quickly. Sometimes boat owners post their information hours before they are leaving port, with notes like “decide fast” in the message.
One message read, in Hebrew (translated here), “Three spaces on a boat heading to Israel Thursday afternoon, only people with sea-faring experience accepted.” Another, also in Hebrew, offered 10 spaces at 1,500 shekels, about $425, each on a boat leaving Haifa for Cyprus that same evening.
Meyers is also helping people who join the group to navigate the Hebrew if they don’t speak or read it well enough to understand the posts.
He doesn’t know who has been successful yet in finding a boat via the WhatsApp group. He’s just putting the info out there and trying to make it easier for people to find.
One of the latest posts is from a man who is chartering a private yacht for 90,000 shekels, about $25,000, and looking for others to share.
Any takers?