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Some Israelis are leaving the country due to the war in Gaza
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TEL AVIV, Israel — The Green household was taken over by piles of clothing, books, and kid’s toys this summer, as 40-year old Inbal Green and her husband Shlomy Green, 37, packed up their lives. Along with their dog, cat and four-year-old daughter Riley, the Israeli couple were leaving suburban life outside Tel Aviv and moving to Thailand. Since the war in Gaza began last October, they'd felt too unsafe to stay.
Shlomy opened a kitchen cabinet filled to the brim with stacks of canned goods, cereal and teabags.
“Now we have to sort through the entire house and decide only what we want to take with us,” he said. “That’s why the house is in complete shambles.”
The Greens, born and raised in Israel, are among a growing number of Jewish Israelis looking for jobs abroad and leaving since last Oct. 7. Israeli media reported figures from Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics showing a spike in the number of Israelis — more than 12,000 — who left the country last October and had not returned by June.
The war in Gaza, which has killed over 41,000 Palestinians, according to health officials there, was triggered when Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 250 others hostage.
The vast majority of Jewish Israelis support the defeat of Hamas as essential to the country’s future security. But the toll of this war — for both Israelis and Palestinians — is also driving some Jewish Israelis to choose to leave the country. Some, like the Greens, say they’re leaving for good.
The Greens said that with their country’s shaky political and security situation, they’ve previously toyed with the idea of leaving. But after last October's Hamas-led attack, they just didn't feel safe in Israel, Shlomy said. They believed the Israeli government wasn’t doing — or going to do — enough to protect them from future attacks.
“The thing is we want to feel safe and secure in our home,” he said. “And we’re not willing to compromise on that.”
A temporary departure is followed by a decision to leave permanently
The Greens said that in the early morning of Oct. 7, they were awoken by air raid sirens warning residents of incoming rockets from Hamas or Hezbollah. Most homes in Israel have a safe room that people will shelter in when these sirens go off.
All three ran into their safe room, and that’s when they started getting text messages from family and friends telling them the news of the Hamas-led attacks in the south.
Inbal said they grew concerned that the attacks might spread further into Israel. Tel Aviv is only about 40 miles from the Gaza Strip. So they packed up some essentials and made their way to the airport, getting on one of the last flights to Cyprus by noon that day
“We felt like we were fleeing,” Shlomy said. “We were basically just thankful that we left in time.”
The Greens spent two months abroad but had to make their way back to Israel for practical reasons — their Israeli health insurance stopped paying their medical bills because they were abroad, Shlomy broke his leg and his employer wanted him back in Israel.
But by then, Inbal said, leaving Israel for good had become their shared goal. Shlomy, a software developer, applied for jobs all over the world and landed one in Thailand. He said they did their research and felt they would be able to lead a comfortable life there.
“There are very low or nonexistent antisemitism rates there right now,” he explained. “Almost no pro-Palestinian protests, life is calm there, which is what we were looking for.”
Shlomy said he used to believe that peace was possible with Palestinians, but after the Hamas attack, he’s unsure.
An Israeli immigration lawyer sees a spike in work visa and relocation cases
Labor and corporate immigration lawyer Liam Schwartz works at one of Israel’s largest law firms. From a meeting room at his firm, there’s a magnificent view of Tel Aviv, the sea on one side, skyscrapers on the other.
Schwartz helps Israeli businesses relocate their employees to parent companies in the U.S., and works with families who want to move there. He normally sees hundreds of cases a year, but says his workload has increased by at least 40% in the past few months. What makes this year unique is Oct. 7, he said.
“I’ve never been this busy ever in my career,” Shwartz said. “This is way beyond expectations.”
Schwartz said that Israeli companies are worried about a possible all-out war in northern Israel with Hezbollah. The two sides have been trading fire across the Israel-Lebanon border since the conflict in Gaza started. Because of this, companies, especially those in high tech, are relocating entire teams to the United States.
He’s also seeing Israeli employees pressure their companies to sponsor them for work visas to the U.S. Many of these employees just don’t feel safe or comfortable in Israel anymore, he said.
“Companies are interested in not losing talent, so many of them are just saying yes,” Schwartz said.
Schwartz acknowledged that these are privileged Israelis. Many others don’t have the luxury of applying for work visas or even a regular visa, because they are unskilled or don’t have the means. “For the woman who sweeps the floor where I work, there’s basically nothing there,” he said, because she is unskilled and her employer would most probably not sponsor her.
"Like being foreign in my own country"
Some Israelis say they want to leave because they are disillusioned with how their government is handling the war in Gaza. The families of the hostages kidnapped from Israel on Oct. 7 have been protesting, along with thousands of other Israelis, to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept the peace deal presented by President Biden in May.
At a weekly anti-government protest in May in Tel Aviv, Hadar Behrendt held up a sign saying “Nine Months Already,” referring to the length of the war in Gaza at the time and how hostages are still there.
She said she doesn’t want to be ashamed of what Israel has become. She’d rather go elsewhere.
“It’s like being foreign in my own country,” said Behrendt. “We are kidnapped by this government.”
Behrendt, who said her family escaped Germany in 1936, said she will be using her German passport to move to Greece with her husband.
“It’s very hard for us,” she said. “All our family is here, but I can’t be part of this.”
Inbal Green, packing for her own family’s departure, said she grew up in a Zionist family, believing that she had a duty to protect and serve Israel. She was a reservist for 14 years, volunteered with the Israeli police and the Israeli national medical emergency organization.
“And then here comes October 7th, and after all that, I still have to pack my things,” she said.
Her grandmother survived the Holocaust and settled in Israel, she said. But she doesn’t want what she calls the instability and chaos of today’s Israel to be her daughter’s responsibility.
“The country suffers from PTSD. I don’t want her to carry that on her tiny shoulders,” Inbal said.
She admitted that she is also tired of carrying what she says is the burden of feeling insecure and uncertain about the future in her own country.
“I don’t want to carry that anymore,” she said. “I think it’s OK to say … I want to breathe.”
Inbal insisted she was sure she didn’t want to come back to live in Israel ever again. Only one thing would bring her back — if her daughter chooses to serve in the Israeli military.
“I still think it is important,” Inbal said about the compulsory Israeli military service. “It is a character builder.”
Itay Stern contributed reporting from Tel Aviv.
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