Israeli Aliyah and Integration Minister Ofir Sofer returned to Israel by boat on Sunday night after being evacuated from Azerbaijan, which shares a 428-mile border with Iran.
Sofer touched down in Baku to attend a Jewish youth seminar organized in partnership with the Jewish Agency for Israel mere hours before the IDF launched “Operation Rising Lion” against Iran’s nuclear program.
Amid fears that the Islamic Republic would target Israeli officials abroad in retaliation for the military offensive, Sofer was placed under strict security and barred from leaving his hotel, Israel Hayom reported on Monday.
Sofer, an Orthodox Jewish lawmaker on behalf of the Religious Zionism Party, received rabbinical permission on Friday night—Shabbat—to fly to Athens, Israel Hayom said. From the Greek capital, the minister was brought to Cyprus, from where he took a boat back to the Jewish state.
“The security was insane. I’ve never had that kind of protection before. You couldn’t even count how many bodyguards there were,” Sofir told Ynet on Monday.
“On Friday, I received an order that we needed to evacuate. I was with a Jewish Agency delegation and participated in a Kabbalat Shabbat event with the Jewish community. Two hours later, we flew to Athens. The security forces were adamant that we get out of there,” Sofir said.
“The next day, I got to Cyprus and then returned to Israel by yacht. As we approached, there were missile attacks on Haifa, so we were delayed at sea for a long time. All in all, it was a nine-hour journey,” he recalled.
“Unfortunately, not all the Jewish children made it to the meeting in Baku, and the seminar ended up being small. There were supposed to be 50 kids, but only half came,” the minister lamented. “We don’t want this to harm aliyah. The summer is the prime time for immigration.”
Early on Friday, more than 200 Israeli fighter jets attacked dozens of enemy targets, including military and nuclear sites, in a “preemptive, precise, combined” opening strike on Tehran’s nuclear program.
The IDF said the strikes were based on “high-quality intelligence” and came “in response to the Iranian regime’s ongoing aggression against Israel.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the operation would “continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat,” vowing to fully end “the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival.”