Only an Israeli would start a company in the middle of a war. Yet that’s what the founders of airHaifa did, forming the first new airline in Israel in 35 years. The inaugural flight from Tel Aviv to Eilat was on October 1. Other flights from Haifa and Tel Aviv to Eilat and Larnaca (Cyprus) are scheduled when the security situation allows it.
At the end of August, Bees Airlines, a new airline from Romania, commenced flights between Bucharest and Tel Aviv.
With the outbreak of war, immigration to Israel (Hebrew: Aliyah) could be expected to plummet. The reverse took place. From September 16, 2023, to September 19, 2024, the number of new immigrants from over a hundred nations was over 31,000, according to numbers released by the Aliyah and Integration Ministry on September 29, with 20,000 coming from Russia alone.
Other countries with substantial numbers of immigrants to Israel include Argentina, Australia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, France, Georgia, Germany, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Ukraine, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States and Uzbekistan.
A third of the immigrants are between the age of 18 and 35, many of whom were called into army service. Immigration applications from France are up 352%, from Canada up 87%, from the United Kingdom 62% and from the USA 60%.
For decades, the Christians of Lebanon and other minorities have lived under Hizbullah terror. Until 2024, Hizbullah was the largest and most heavily-armed terrorist organization in the Middle East and was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Arabs, Israelis and Americans. Hizbullah is part of the Lebanese government and dominates its policies.
On September 29, 2024, two days after Hassan Nasrallah, its head for 32 years, was confirmed dead, Brigitte Gabriel, a Lebanese-Christian and conservative activist now living in the United States, reacted in a passionate appeal to her millions of followers on social media. Gabriel began her career as a news anchor on the Arabic-language METV, the Evangelical Middle East channel owned by Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). A portion of Gabriel’s broadcast follows.
Thank you, Israel, on behalf of Lebanese in Lebanon and around the world who would never dare come out publicly and thank you. On their behalf I thank you. I am receiving thousands of messages on my social media from Lebanese rejoicing in and out of Lebanon [with] the hope that they can take their country back and build it again to be what it once was, the Paris of the Middle East, before Hizbullah destroyed it.
Hizbullah is a domestic terrorist organization funded by Iran, who is in complete control of Lebanon. Lebanon has not had a president for two years because Hizbullah does not want a Christian president in the country. They have terrorized the Lebanese people of all faiths, especially the Christians.…
The Israeli government doesn’t pay me a dime. I speak out the way I do because of my conviction and my life experience.
I remember a time when we lived in peace, Israelis and Lebanese of South Lebanon together. I used to drive my car to work between Lebanon and Israel. I had a home in Israel, where I lived in Jerusalem during the week, and I would go back to Lebanon on the weekend to visit my parents in Marjayoun. We had the Good Fence [through which] many Lebanese went to work in Israel daily. South Lebanon prospered.
We used to take our friends visiting from Beirut in their Lebanese cars to Israel and visit Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Many Lebanese married into Israel and vice versa. We even had a Lebanese consulate in Jerusalem on Migdalei Megiddo facing the Knesset [Israeli parliament], where I spent many evenings in 1984 and 1985.
We had hope of peace plans because of the talks between Lebanon and Israel at the time, until the founding of Hizbullah, when the whole country went downhill. A lot of Lebanese today live in Israel, who were driven out by Hizbullah, fearing for their lives: Christians, Muslims and Druze.
Since then, Lebanon had a brain drain as Hizbullah drove the Christians out, just like Europe had a brain drain after they drove their Jews out in WWII. Lebanon traded their innovators, their business builders, their professionals for bomb makers, glorified terrorists and hate-driven monsters.
Many people ask me, Why don’t you go back? Because Hizbullah wants my head on a platter. My only crime is that I want peace with Israel.
Many Lebanese of all faiths do not want war with Israel. We want peace. We want prosperity. We want to raise our children together to grow up and love and accomplish and build and turn the Middle East into a paradise.
Lebanese leaders, I am calling on you now. Now is the time to seize the opportunity and make peace with Israel. Take back your country. I am calling on all Lebanese leaders and influencers across the world to come together. Let’s do it.
If Jordan, Egypt, UAE and many others in the Middle East can have peace with Israel, why can’t Lebanon? Now is the time.