EXCLUSIVE: Brits evacuated from Israel in ‘biggest rescue operation’ since outbreak of war

Over 60 British young people have escaped war-torn Israel in what is believed to be the biggest rescue operation since the start of the Israel-Iran conflict.

The group, aged between 20 and 26, were among 1,800 passengers taken to safety on a cruise ship, which docked in Limassol in Cyprus in the early hours of Saturday morning after a 13-hour journey from Ashdod, southern Israel.

The rescue boat, arranged by educational organisation Birthright, was given protection by Israeli naval vessels following closely behind until it reached international waters. It had been given the green light by the rabbinic authorities to make the journey on Shabbat.

Nearly all of the evacuees had been on programmes run by Birthright, which had managed to get 1,500 young people out on another ship to Cyprus on Wednesday.

“This was the most inspiring rescue operation ever,” said Amir Sherman, the Birthright development manager from UJIA,  Birthright’s UK partner, which coordinated the travel logistics for the British passengers, who were due to fly on to London.

“This is a moment of history for the participants, who have been in Israel during the toughest situation the country has ever had,” he said. “If you asked them, most would have chosen to stay, but Birthright took responsibility and said that they needed to get back to their families.”

Passenger Tallulah Collins, 20, had been in her Tel Aviv apartment by herself when the sirens went off on Friday morning. 

Speaking to the JC after docking in Cyprus, she said: “I freaked out. I ran downstairs, but found that the bomb shelter was shut, so was standing in the road, screaming and crying. As we were running to another shelter, there were rockets flying through the air.”

She found herself in “the smallest shelter ever, and we were in and out of it for about two and a half hours during the night. It was terrifying.”

While relieved to be returning to the UK, Tallulah said that part of her felt “guilty about leaving” Israel, adding: “I wish I could put the whole of Israel in my pocket and take them with me.”

Passengers disembarking the ship at Limassol Port in Cyprus (Photo: Taglit Birthright Israel)[Missing Credit]

Jake Landsberg, 20, a student from North London, had only arrived in Israel last Wednesday. He and his friends were on their way back from clubbing in the early hours of Friday morning when the sirens went off. “I was petrified,” he told the JC after arriving in Cyprus.

He recalled “the commotion” of running to a shelter in an underground car park, only to find that it was shut. “That was when we were most scared. Thankfully, we found another shelter nearby. Our leaders were incredible.

“You see this on the news, and you know that Israelis are equipped for it, but when I was in the bomb shelter and was looking to the Israelis for reassurance, one of them was physically shaking.”

The next couple of nights were spent in and out of bomb shelters. “After I while, as it was happening so often, I became less scared,” he said.

On Sunday, Birthright transferred participants to Eilat, and while there were far fewer sirens, the “most surreal” moment was seeing two defence rockets from the Iron Dome “flying over our heads”. While they ran for cover, “Israelis were just sitting there, smoking and drinking and laughing at us”.

Fellow passenger, Alex, 20, from Mill Hill, north-west London, said she was “glad” to have arrived on safe land on Saturday morning. “I’m sad that I had to leave, but glad to be here and am feeling more relaxed now. My family have been worried.”

Having also only arrived two days before the war started, she and her friends found themselves in a taxi on their way to their apartment in Tel Aviv after a night out, when the first siren went off on Friday morning.

“We were very scared, and our taxi driver wouldn’t pull over. When we got back, we went straight to a shelter, but everyone was shaken up and didn’t know what was going on.”

She described the couple of days spent in Tel Aviv before being moved to Eilat as “very scary. It was like sitting on the edge of your seat, never knowing if something was going to go off.”

On hearing about the rescue ship, Alex said: “My first fear was whether we were going to be a target, but they reassured us by saying that the Israeli Navy would be following us until we were out of Israeli waters”.

She said that while there was “a lot of partying” on the ship, which had passengers from the UK, North and South America, Canada and Europe, “I slept through most of it”.

The Birthright ship docking at Liamassol on Saturday (Photo: Taglit Birthright Israel)[Missing Credit]

She praised the handling of the operation by Birthright and UJIA. “Before the rescue operation, they couldn’t tell us very much, but in terms of making us feel safe, they looked after us all really well. When we were told about the ship, we had to keep it as hush hush as possible.”

Sherman said that as well as moving the group to Eilat to be safer, Birthright also provided them with emotional support.

Birthright is the largest Jewish educational organisation in the world, and in the last 25 years, it has brought over 900,000 participants to Israel. This includes 400 annually from the UK, partnered by UJIA, which is Birthright’s largest UK supporter.

On Wednesday, the UK Foreign Office launched a website for British nationals currently in Israel and the Palestinian territories to register their presence.

On Friday, Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the UK government was planning to arrange flights to evacuate UK nationals once airspace was reopened.