‘Living on pins and needles.' Second rescue flight from Israel lands in Florida
A second rescue flight carrying Floridians and other Americans stranded in Israel amid the ongoing conflict with Iran landed in Tampa early Friday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said.
'There are going to be more folks that are going to be rescued,' said DeSantis, calling the evacuation missions the 'most logistically challenging rescues' the state has done during his time as governor. This is 'an ongoing effort.'
The state is working with several groups, including Tampa-based and veteran-led Grey Bull Rescue, to coordinate evacuation and rescue efforts as commercial flights to and from Israel are halted. Florida Sen. Jay Collins from Tampa, a retired Green Beret, is in Israel assisting the rescue group with the evacuation efforts.
So far, Florida has flown over 300 people and 'we have put on a passenger ferry over 1,000 more,' said Kevin Guthrie, executive director of Florida's Division of Emergency Management, which oversees the state's response to hurricanes and other disasters.
The people rescued have included families, veterans and college students. Guthrie said state officials and the rescue groups would not discuss logistic details of the rescue operations, citing safety issues for the people being evacuated and the rescuers.
What a Broward man says about the rescue
Broward County resident Josh Hammer, a Newsweek senior editor-at-large and host of 'The Josh Hammer Show' podcast, was one of many who arrived early Friday to Tampa.
Hammer, who lives in Hallandale Beach, went to Israel about a week and half ago with his family and 6-month old baby girl to attend a family wedding. Then the airstrikes began.
We were 'living on pins and needles for the sirens to go off,' with just '90 seconds to two minutes' to run into a bomb shelter, he said.
'The whole week has just been a total blur,' Hammer said at a Friday news conference. 'I feel like I'm not even here right now, physically.'
Hammer shared more of his family's harrowing experience on the social media site X, which included crossing the border into Jordan and flying to Cyprus, an island nation in the Mediterranean Sea, before finally boarding a flight to Florida.
'Suffice it to say this was not the trip we had in mind. The past week has been absolutely crazy — especially with a six-month-old baby girl,' he said his post. 'None of this has been easy, to put it mildly. We will have some crazy stories for our daughter one day. Her first official passport stamp, humorously, is Jordan, since Israel doesn't stamp passports anymore.'
Earlier this week, the U.S. State Department raised its travel advisory for Israel to Level 4, its highest level, and is warning U.S. citizens to not travel to the country 'due to armed conflict, terrorism, and civil unrest.' The West Bank and Gaza are also under the 'Do Not Travel' Level 4 advisory.
This is the second time the DeSantis administration has helped get stranded Floridians out of Israel during conflict in the Middle East. In 2023, during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the state helped fly out nearly 700 Americans from Israel.
Florida is directing Americans who need help to get out of Israel to fill out a form at FloridaDisaster.org/IsraelRescue.
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