Ron Hansen [6/25/25]
Read the article here.
For 19 Jewish Arizonans and their loved ones, the recent missile volleys between Israel and Iran were more than a new flashpoint in an often-dangerous region.
That group, made up of 17 high school students and two staff chaperones, landed back home at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on June 25, ending a harrowing period that included hiding in Israeli bomb shelters as war tensions reached a boil.
They made a hasty exit by ship to the island of Cyprus with help from Arizona’s senators, Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly, and the U.S. Embassy headed by Ambassador Mike Huckabee to get them — and 13 other Americans — out of harm’s way.
The sun-splashed landing in Phoenix served as a welcome end to a trip organized by Congregation Beth Israel in Scottsdale and Alexander Muss High School in Hod HaSharon, Israel, intended to immerse young adults in Jewish religious traditions and Israeli history and culture. The group also saw firsthand another facet of current life in Israel: an ever-present fear of war.
“It is such a helpless, scary feeling to have your child thousands of miles away going into a bomb shelter multiple times a day as warning sirens ring out and missiles approach Israel,” Brett Kurland, a parent to one of the travelers, said in a statement provided by the senators.
“We are beyond grateful to everyone in the U.S. and Israeli governments who worked around the clock to bring our son home.”
Kurland, a Phoenix resident, praised Gallego’s office for staying in “constant contact” as they worked to get the children out of Israel.
“It was clear this was a top priority for them. They treated the situation as if it were their own children,” he said.
Amid uncertainty, an urgent exit
Israel and Iran remain locked in an uncertain conflict that escalated to historic levels when President Donald Trump ordered a June 21 bombing raid over Iran intended to knock out that country’s nuclear weapons program.
For days leading up to that move, Trump was coy about his intentions as the world watched and wondered where American intervention in another Middle Eastern war might lead. That’s when the Arizona group was trying to find safe passage from Israel, even as bombs rained down in Tel Aviv and Tehran.
“No parent should have to endure the fear and uncertainty of having their child caught in a conflict zone,” Gallego, a Democrat, said in a statement to The Arizona Republic. “Knowing these teens are finally home, we can all breathe a sigh of relief.”
He praised his staff, the State Department and the Israeli Consulate for coordinating the group’s return.
Kelly, a Democrat, similarly understood the angst the families felt.
“When I first heard about these students, as a dad, I imagined how their parents felt, separated from them without the ability to get home,” he said in a statement. “But the work isn’t done. There are still Arizonans stuck in Israel that we’re working to bring home safely.”
The Arizona group’s return to Phoenix ended days of shifting plans to get them out of the Middle East as a widening war unfolded around them.
Conflict erupts around them
The group began arriving June 4 and traveled through Israel for more than a week as scheduled.
That changed when the latest bout of fighting between the nations began on June 13. Israeli forces launched an attack that killed Iranians in the military and government, as well as scientists there. Iran responded with missile attacks that landed on military targets in the Israeli capital of Tel Aviv.
From there, the nations traded daily attacks on each other. Iranian estimates report more than 600 fatalities and thousands injured due to the Israeli attacks. Israel has reported at least 29 deaths and thousands of injuries from the Iranian attacks. Both countries are in the second day of a ceasefire.
About two days into the fighting, Gallego and Kelly began receiving calls from Arizona families and faith leaders about the group in Israel. The senators and their staffs spoke with U.S. authorities in Israel, including Huckabee; Israeli officials in America; and the affected Arizona families.
Being a priority traveler leaving Israel was no easy feat.
There are 700,000 Americans living in Israel — the largest U.S. expat community other than Mexico. Their safety amid the rapidly deteriorating conditions in Israel was a priority for the U.S. Embassy as well.
On June 15, for example, the offices in Tel Aviv were closed as part of a shelter-in-place order in Israel. Bombs that hit the capital caused secondary damage to the U.S. Embassy, Huckabee said.
He made public pleas on social media for Americans to make plans to leave Israel if that was their goal. One of them came after speaking with Gallego, who urged him to make the Arizona group a top priority.
“Urgent notice! American citizens wanting to leave Israel — US Embassy in Israel is working on evacuation flights & cruise ship departures,” Huckabee wrote in a June 18 post on X.
Plans to leave changed by the day
Taglit Birthright Israel, a nonprofit organization that handles trips similar to the one by the Arizona group, helped arrange the departure of visitors, including theirs.
By June 17, it helped organize seats on a ship departing for Cyprus, the Mediterranean island located about 125 miles northwest of Israel.
The senators pressed the Israeli Consulate to ensure the group’s members were treated as priority passengers, even as they urged the group’s leaders to make a backup plan.
Before that journey, however, the group was booked June 19 for a flight to leave Israel the next day.
It didn’t happen.
The flight was canceled because of security concerns in a country where the airspace has been intermittently closed, and terrorism worries never end even during peaceful interludes.
That led Kelly back to Huckabee on June 19 to ensure that the Arizona group was allowed aboard the Birthright Israel cruise ship headed to Cyprus the next day. Huckabee’s wife worked with the student-program leaders as well.
One parent described the period this way: “It was a nightmare unfolding in real-time. We were glued to the news while our daughter was there, seeing the missile strikes, sometimes just a few miles from where her group was staying.”
After days of uncertainty, the group boarded the vessel.
The long way home
About 18 hours later, shortly after daybreak on June 20, the ship arrived in Cyprus. It was still June 19 in Arizona, when their safe arrival was clear.
It came hours after White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt formally announced that Trump would decide within two weeks whether the U.S. would strike Iran. As it turned out, scarcely two days later, U.S. bombers did.
They targeted three sites linked to Iran’s nuclear development program, sparking new safety precautions across Israel.
As that country continued to grapple with war, the Arizona group flew to New York and on to Phoenix, where the battle was something unfolding on TV, not rattling windows outside with sirens blaring.
Phoenix couple Adam and Renee Shprecher’s son was among those who made it back. They thanked Gallego, Kelly and Huckabee, as well as Birthright Israel, for sustained help under the worst circumstances.
“When the war between Israel and Iran broke out, our teenage son was on a summer tour of Israel with his camp friends, and they were all scared and out of our direct ability to protect them and control the situation,” the couple said in a statement.
They cited a personal call from Kelly as giving them confidence the group’s safe return was a top priority from the senators to the U.S. embassy abroad.
“Thanks to the senators’ leadership and compassion, our son is home safe — and they have our most heartfelt appreciation,” the couple said.