UNITY: Google Searches For Return To Israel Surge In Wake Of Hamas Attack: Report

 According to a report analyzing Google data, once the world realized what was happening as Hamas attacked Israel, searches for flights back to Israel reportedly surged.

“When there is a war, most people flee, but we run back home,” one social media user commented.

“On Google trends, a tool provided by Google that allows tracking of global Google searches, you can visually see the rise in demand for making an Aliyah to Israel, specifically in the wake of the war,” Israel National News reported. “By examining the graphs that depict the search interest, you can see when the war began, and alongside it, the increase in the desire to come to Israel.”

A surge in searches for flights from the U.S. and India to Israel occurred, possibly from Israelis abroad looking to return to fight in the war against Hamas.

“Everyone is coming. No one is saying no,” Yonatan Steiner, 24, one of 360,000 reservists called up by Israel, stated from the border near Lebanon. He had flown back from New York, where he works, to join his old army medical unit. “This is different, this is unprecedented, the rules have changed.”

Nimrod Nedan, 23, studying medicine in Lithuania, said, “I cannot sit here and study medicine while I know that my friends are fighting and my family needs protection. This is my time.”

 

L.K., 37, who had been an air force pilot for 13 years, left his wife and children to return to Israel, told Reuters, “There is no other place in the world I would rather be. If I had to sit in my lovely apartment on the Upper West Side watching this I would never forgive myself.”

Additionally, on Monday, an anonymous Orthodox Jewish man reportedly purchased tickets for Israel Defense Forces call-ups to return to Israel at JFK Airport on Monday. He stood at El Al’s ticket counter and bought tickets for anyone showing him their IDF call-up notice, Avi Mayer, editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post, reported. He ended up buying 250 tickets.

El Al spokeswoman Ofri Rimoni said another Orthodox Jew paid for reservists’ military gear to be shipped to Israel.