() Florida is once again working to evacuate Americans stranded in Israel.
The State Department has begun evacuating nonessential diplomats and their families, while private citizens are turning to evacuation flights and cruise ships to flee escalating violence.
Roughly 1,500 people including college-aged students who were on a 10-day Birthright trip when attacks began were headed to Tampa, Florida, on Thursday, thanks to state officials.
The group first boarded a cruise ship to Cyprus, escorted by the Israeli Navy. From Cyprus, the group boarded four planes chartered by the state of Florida.
Following attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis coordinated a similar operation and chartered planes that helped bring 700 Americans back to the United States.
Jonathan Ellis, chair of Tampa’s Jewish Community Relations Council, said he’s proud of the effort made by Florida’s governor.
“Florida has the resources to make sure that American citizens can get back to the U.S. that were stranded in Israel,” he told ‘s WFLA. “You have to commend him for the actions he’s taking.”
‘An eye-opener’: American family stuck in Israel amid Iranian attacks
Many more remain stuck in Israel. One Florida family has spent their days relatively normally and their nights running to bomb shelters at the sound of sirens.
“We usually only get anywhere from two to five minutes from the time the alarms go off until the time we could safely get to the bomb shelter, carrying my five year old five flights down the stairs,” said Stephen Katz, who traveled to Israel with his wife and three children for an annual mission.
Katz said he and his family will leave Israel “as soon as it’s safe to do so, according to the United States and Israeli authorities,” but those around them have made handling the chaos more manageable.
“The residents here and the citizens here are all calm. There’s no sense of fear. There’s no sense of panic. There’s a sense of a common goal,” Katz said. “Here, everyone seems to be chipping in, and you see lots of acts of loving kindness with the different people in the shelter. Everyone’s helping each other.”
He added that he’s grown to feel pride, inspiration and solidarity with the Jewish people in Israel.
“We’ve been dealing with this for a week,” Katz told . “They’ve been dealing with this for years.”
