A church group from Georgia described arriving in Israel as Hamas, a Palestinian militant group, launched an invasion of Israel as landing “in the war zone.”
Ten people out of a group of 42 from Graystone Church in Loganville that had been traveling to visit the Holy Land had a connecting flight out of John F. Kennedy Airport to Tel Aviv, Israel, according to 11Alive News.
The group arrived in Israel early Saturday morning, the same day that Hamas launched an attack on Israel. There were thousands of rockets launched and more than 250 people who had been attending a music festival near the Gaza border were killed.
“We were pretty much landed in the war zone and then left there by Delta, but with no place to go other than our hotel,” one of the group members, Wayne Shelmutt, told the outlet.
'Mass chaos': Georgia church group trying to get home after start of Israel-Hamas war https://t.co/4L91MvgBfa
— FOX 5 Atlanta (@FOX5Atlanta) October 11, 2023
“Nobody in our group had been here before, so we were all really looking forward to it,” Shelmutt explained.
Shelmutt explained to the outlet that they were not aware of the attacks Hamas had launched on Israel while on the flight.
As the group was traveling to the city of Netanya, where their hotel was, Shelmutt described seeing cars “flying over to the right,” and people “jumping out of their cars and laying” underneath their vehicles.
Two days later, some members of the group were able to find a flight out to Cyprus, leaving several others still stranded due to a bomb scare at the airport in Tel Aviv.
Shelmutt confirmed to the outlet that he and other members of the group are now in Cyprus and trying to find flights home later this week.
“I think we’ve all seen it on the news, but you don’t understand just how scary it is until you’re actually in the middle of it,” Shelmutt explained. “We’ve all kind of commented on how tough it must be for the people of Israel to live like this. But it’s definitely tense and a scary time to be over here.”
As of Wednesday, 1,200 Israelis have been reported dead as a result of Hamas’ attack on Israel. The State Department also confirmed on Wednesday that 22 Americans have been reported to be dead.
At least 150 Israelis, including children and the elderly, have been taken hostage by Hamas, an Israeli military official said, according to The New York Times.
