TABA, Egypt—It was a trip the young Israeli couple will never forget.
Tohar and Amit Cohen, 28, were on their way home from their honeymoon in Australia when their connecting flight to Tel Aviv via Abu Dhabi made a U-turn midair just as it was approaching Tel Aviv when war with Iran broke out last month.
For the next 10 days, the Tel Aviv newlyweds were among thousands of Israelis stranded in the United Arab Emirates as the Gulf state, which came under unprecedented missile and drone attacks launched by Iran, temporarily closed its airspace last week.
On Monday night, the couple, along with hundreds of other Israelis who had been stranded in the UAE, finally made it home on special flights organized by two small Israeli carriers that landed at a tiny airport in the Sinai Desert.
“I was a bit afraid because I had never been to Sinai,” Tohar Cohen told JNS upon landing. “But I was more scared to get stuck for another two weeks and just wanted to get home.”
The one-room airport terminal—also used for tourists exiting Israel after the outbreak of war on Feb. 28—was teeming on Monday evening with Israeli tourists on a flight back from Dubai with a colorful mix of young and old, backpackers stopped in their tracks on the way back from the Far East, families and a group of Russian-speaking Israelis.
Adi Cohen-Dictor, 49, of Tel Aviv, had tried to rush back to Israel from a vacation in Thailand with her two young daughters just before the war broke out. She left her husband and son in Bangkok after her son had stomach flu and was unable to travel, only to be turned around midair and then stuck in Abu Dhabi for more than a week. The bright spot was that their stay was covered by the Emirati airline and the government.
After failing to secure seats for her children on several publicized, government-sponsored repatriation flights from the UAE that prioritized families and the elderly, she paid $850 for a one-way ticket for an Arkia or Israir European-leased flight via Egypt. She selected this option to return home as quickly as possible.
“I wouldn’t have chosen this route, but this was the situation,” she said, expressing her relief at being on her way back.
Ayal Elbaz, 37, of the central Israeli community of Ginaton, was on a business trip in Singapore when his return flight got cancelled, and ended up stuck in a detention cell at the Bangkok airport with his two coworkers alongside Pakistanis and Indians when they didn’t have an onward flight or hotel booking.
They were then put on a flight back to Singapore and allowed to re-enter with the help of the Israeli Consul, after which they flew to Dubai and then on to Taba to enter Israel.
“This has been one long journey flying through five countries to get home,” Elbaz said.
‘As fast as possible’
Over nearly two weeks now, some 25,000 stranded Israelis returned to the country via land border crossings with Egypt and Jordan, while 31,000 people left Israel via the crossings, according to the Israeli Ministry of Interior.
After filling out a short immigration form—a flashback to a pre-digital age—and having their passports stamped by Egyptian immigration officers, the tourists picked up their bags at the lone luggage carousel. They then stepped out to the desert to haggle with Egyptian taxi drivers in a mix of Hebrew and Arabic over the war-heightened price of the half-hour ride to the Israeli border.
After a circuitous journey, the passengers were weary but ecstatic to be on their way back to the Jewish state.
“We wanted to get home as fast as possible,” offered Rachel Handel, 70, of the Jerusalem bedroom community of Har Adar, who was visiting Dubai with her daughter and grandson when the war broke out. “The main thing is we are safely home.”
As the Israeli flag came into view at the entrance to the land crossing into the Red Sea resort city of Eilat, the passengers gave out cries of joy and thanksgiving.
“It’s our exodus from Egypt,” they exclaimed.
