Florida will assist in evacuating more Americans from Israel, according to DeSantis

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis funds rescue flights from Israel – Courtesy: Shutterstock – Image by Hunter Crenian

After spending almost eight hours in an airport in Larnaca, Cyprus, Sonia Delgado found out that her Florida-funded rescue flight back to the United States would not be arriving that evening.

Along with her Jewish daughter and best friend, the Atlanta resident had traveled to Tel Aviv, Israel. As air sirens started to sound last week owing to strikes between Israel and Iran, they were among the first to evacuate, with assistance from the state and the nonprofit organization Grey Bull Rescue in Tampa.

“There was a bump in the road with every leg of the days-long journey,” Delgado added. She waited for six hours to walk across the Jordanian border. Due to opposition from airport authorities in Amman, Jordan, she nearly believed she wouldn’t be allowed to exit the airport.

Although Delgado and hundreds of other evacuees managed to reach Cyprus, their flight return to the United States was postponed until the following morning. Three dozen people slept in the airport, she added, and there was a rush to find lodgings.

“Everyone has kind of lost faith at this point,” she remarked.

However, Delgado ultimately landed in Tampa at 5:30 a.m. on Friday.

Evacuees were told that the route home would not be simple by Bryan Stern, who established Grey Bull Rescue in 2021 to rescue Americans from foreign crisis areas.

“This isn’t going to be easy,” he stated right away. “I am not an Uber,” Delgado declared.

At a press conference on Friday morning, Governor Ron DeSantis said that the state of Florida had provided funding for two rescue flights carrying over 300 persons to Tampa. According to him, the state also organized a passenger vessel to evacuate around 1,100 other Americans.

However, Grey Bull Rescue volunteers stated that the requests for assistance are only getting started. According to Andrew Wilson, a volunteer and board member of the NGO, the organization has received more than 4,600 requests for evacuation assistance.

DeSantis stated, “As part of Florida’s historic mission to bring our residents home, evacuation flights are still ongoing.” “The safety and well-being of Americans and Floridians will be our top priority, and this operation will continue around-the-clock.”

However, Olivia Loughran, Grey Bull Rescue’s principal case manager, stated that the number of additional missions that the state will support is “really up in the air.” According to her, the state has hitherto solely covered airfare to Florida. According to Loughran, the state also paid for buses and lodgings over the Israel border for the mission that arrived Friday morning.

Delgado’s story shows how easily logistics may go awry in the face of airspace closures and other interruptions brought on by the intensifying conflict.

Birthright Israel, a group that provides funding for Jewish young adults to travel to the nation, said earlier this week that DeSantis would be deploying four charter aircraft to retrieve hundreds of participants who had escaped to Cyprus on a cruise liner.

On Wednesday, CBS 12 reported that just one of the planes arrived. “The son of Jillian Marcus, who lives in South Florida, had to book commercial flights home,” she said in an email to the Tampa Bay Times.

In a statement given to CBS 12, Birthright Israel stated, “Unfortunately… U.S. Embassy-organized flights did not arrive and the process has not gone as smoothly or quickly as we expected.” “While some travelers will stay in Cyprus for the time being, others will take flights today.”

In his prepared remarks, DeSantis made no mention of the Birthright Israel flights. That program was not connected to the flights that landed in Tampa on Friday morning.

At Tampa International Airport, evacuatees congregated close to Airside F, embracing and hurrying to board their subsequent aircraft. Some were returning to the West Coast and New York.

Sarah and the Rev. John Hall, who live in Tallahassee, led a group of 19 people—mostly Christians—on an educational journey to Israel from Florida. They were instructed to meet in Jerusalem and board a bus on Tuesday morning when they were lodging in eastern Israel, close to the Dead Sea.

According to Sarah Hall, they went days without much food, water, or restroom breaks.

She remarked, “We had a lot of trauma bonding.” “It was a great way to learn about our Israeli friends’ lives over the past couple of years.”

According to Stern, state senator Jay Collins, a Republican from Tampa, was helping evacuees in the Middle East. In collaboration with Grey Bull, the state transportation department, the Florida Division of Emergency Management, and contracted contractors are also assisting in the coordination of rescue operations from Israel.

According to the Governor’s Office, the state assisted in the evacuation of around 700 Americans from Israel to Florida in October 2023.


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