Israeli ex-pats trying to get home to join the fight against Hamas

No business as usual for these patriots; as one put it, “We need to return to our homeland.”

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Dozens, if not hundreds, of Israelis are trying to get back to Israel from their homes abroad in order to join Operation Iron Swords against the Hamas terrorist organization that invaded the Jewish state Saturday.

Most airlines have canceled their flights to Israel due to the fighting, and these men, many of whom left the country years ago, are using social media and their networking skills to get on a plane – any plane – to fight for their families and friends.

Noy Live, 32, opened a WhatsApp group to aid reservists across the world find flights.

“There’s no question,” he told Ynet. “People are trying to get there any way they can, they’re looking for connections, the main thing is just to come.”

He himself managed to get a seat on El Al for Sunday, after making “a million” phone calls, and having two different airlines cancel on him after he booked tickets. It cost him $2,500, but the money didn’t matter, he said, “even if it’s supposed to be free.”

Live is a high-tech entrepreneur with his own business who had emigrated to Israel from Canada as a lone soldier before his whole family followed him, and he is in the paratroop reserves.

His WhatsApp group of fellow soldiers was full on Saturday, he said, with pictures of them in uniform with their equipment, asking for rides to their bases, and the like, and he felt like he was going to “explode.”

“My dad told me, ‘What are you, nuts? What are you coming now for?’ But it was clear to me. I am very Zionistic and there’s no way that my friends will be there and not me. It doesn’t matter how much it will cost now,” he said.

Evyatar Shamsiav (35), a teacher in Manhattan, said there were dozens like him who were trying to get to Israel.

“We are a group of 50 people who haven’t been active in the reserves for years, because we haven’t been in Israel for years, but we’re going to come and volunteer for anything, even outside our units,” he said.

“This is a war for our home – that means that you need to do something beyond demonstrating here in New York like we did during Operation Guardian of the Walls…The blood boils, the heart burns, these are our friends, our families. My sister is calling me from the safe room crying, it’s impossible to go on the same way.”

He, too, opened a WhatsApp group, for those who want to return as well as those who want to help from afar, and was pleasantly surprised at the reaction.

“We got tons of responses,” he noted. “There is a consensus among Jewish organizations, there are no sides, no liberals and non-liberals. Even progressive people from the left who are generally critical – everyone is supporting Israel. Something in the equation has changed.”

Yotam Avrahami, 31, said he made the decision to return “about ten minutes” after first hearing the news of the massive terrorist attack, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly called a “war.”

He has friends whose relatives have been killed, including children, and his hometown of Arad “is 50 minutes from the fighting.”

He found a ticket for $2,000, and is leaving his wife and infant daughter in New York to report to a base to go wherever they send him, after not being in the country for four years.

His wife understands his need to come back, he said.

“I have a team there, I have other officer friends who need manpower,” the reservist in a reconnaissance company of the Armored Corps said. “As far as I’m concerned, I fly no matter what. Even if it takes time to call me to active duty, I will report and support in any possible way.”

His clients and family will have to wait.

“I’m putting everything aside. It’s time to unite, move all the less important things aside. We need to return to our homeland.”

“I’m not unique,” he added. “This is kind of Israelis across the board.”

American IsraelisEl AlOperation Iron Swords