WASHINGTON, DC – Forty-six members of a California-based church group trapped in Israel without a way home are pleading with the Biden administration to intervene and help get them back.
The group is making the desperate plea after major airlines canceled almost all flights out of the country since the Hamas attack there Saturday.
As US officials warn that the conflict could last weeks if not months, the Holy Land tour group, from Impact Bible Fellowship in Riverside, Calif., is pleading with the State Department to charter flights to help evacuate Americans from Israel.
“They need to start getting Americans out,” said Silver Prout, who is among the 46 US citizens stuck in Israel. “Where is the State Department?”
While there is no active plan to evacuate Americans, the department said it is operating a 24-hour consular task force to help get information to US citizens.
A State Department official also said it is “working with American carriers to resume flights.”
“In the best interests of America and Israel and that relationship, [they] should be doing everything in their power to ensure – whether it’s assistance with flights or whatever – that we’re safely off the ground,” Prout added.
The group landed in Tel Aviv on Wednesday for a 10-day tour of the Holy Land. While their first few days were spent visiting religious sites, panic sunk in roughly 20 minutes into their bus ride for another excursion Saturday when reports of the atrocities in Gaza came out.
The next day, guides from the tour company, Trans-Global Travel, attempted to salvage another day of the trip, bringing the group to the Sea of Galilee for a church service and baptism in its waters – until Israel’s Ministry of Tourism called for all tours to end and warned tourists to shelter in place.
“As we concluded baptisms, I could tell [something was wrong. I went up to the tour guide, and you could tell he looked very troubled,” Prout said. “So I asked him, ‘What’s really going on?’ And he said, ‘What you need to now [is] we’re going to head back to the hotel and head to the airport tonight.’ “
The tour company first secured Air Canada flights out of Tel Aviv on Tuesday for the group, but they were later canceled. The group was then booked a total of $18,000 in tickets out of Turkish Airlines to leave Friday – but the airline suspended all Israel flights Tuesday.
For now, the group is in a safe location not near the fighting on the West Bank – but Prout said she fears her fellow US citizens are being placed in further jeopardy with each hour that ticks by.
“It’s only going to get worse in the coming days,” she said. “[Israeli forces] are doing a good job containing it, but there’s going to be that pressure from the north from Hezbollah, and then, you know, an airport is the biggest [terrorism] target,” she said.
With nothing but a canceled plane ticket and no information from American authorities on assistance, Prout said the group now can only pray for its escape.