Mejdi Tours is resuming tours in Israel this spring, vowing to address the Israel-Hamas war from the Israeli and Palestinian perspectives.
The Delray Beach, Fla.-based company is known for its trips that focus on social change, and they are typically led by Israeli and Palestinian guides. Mejdi will resume its existing tours to Israel beginning March 9 but will also add a six-day itinerary called Israel and Palestine Beyond the Headlines.
Kim Passy Yoseph, director of operations at Mejdi Tours, said, “There is no other company today that is willing and brave enough to offer an additional narrative. Everyone is so strongly stuck to their own narrative and stuck to the idea that one side has to be right. And they’re doing trips that are solely focused on one side.”
The company is calling the trip a mission, one that seeks to “transcend the headlines by bringing visitors together with guides, experts, local communities, families and organizations to better grasp the situation on the ground, and to support those who continue to pursue a more just, peaceful future.”
Kim Passy Yoseph, director of operations for Mejdi Tours. Photo Credit: Mejdi Tours
Yoseph said she helped create the tour to counter the rise of current tours in Israel that bring guests to the areas where hundreds of Israelis were killed on Oct. 7, including the kibbutzim communities Hamas targeted in the early morning attack, the site of the music festival that was besieged and the hotels where displaced Israelis have been living since October.
Yoseph said a rabbi approached her recently requesting one such trip for a group.
“They want to see the ruined homes. They want to see where the party was. They want to go to the hotels. My stomach was turning,” Yoseph said. “It was so difficult to hear that someone already wants to come and see these sites, as if they are sites, and not this reality that we’re actually living through.”
Yoseph said her childhood friend was held hostage by Hamas for 54 days and is still coping with the experience.
“Some people were there and haven’t seen their homes [since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7], while other people are walking around and taking pictures and talking about it,” she said.
Ya’lla Tours adds meeting with war journalists
Ya’lla Tours USA, which is based in North Carolina and specializes in trips to the Middle East and the Mediterranean, will resume its existing Israel tours in May, with pilgrimages resuming at the end of August. The company will also offer an optional one-day extension that will consist of meeting with local journalists who have covered the war, said Ya’lla president Ronen Paldi, a native Israeli.
With permission from the Israeli army, Ya’lla will take guests to the southern region of Israel, where a number of kibbutzim communities have been abandoned due to the war.
A Ya’lla Tours guide in Israel addresses guests. Photo Credit: Ya’lla Tours
Paldi said the visit paired with discussions with local journalists might help travelers put into perspective the ripple effect of the damage caused to the local communities most impacted by the attacks. The extensions will not be marketed or promoted, and Paldi said interested guests will be screened to determine how genuine is their interest level and why they want to go.
“We’re waiting for them to approach us,” Paldi said. “I just want to make sure they’re not doing it for a selfie reason; that they really have an interest and a lot of empathy.”
Israel air service is ramping up
Because of the Israel-Hamas war, many tour operators have canceled Israel tours through the summer or through all of 2024. Airlift has not returned to normal since airlines suspended flights in and out of Tel Aviv after the war started, but many European airlines have resumed service and El Al is increasing U.S. service this spring. Paldi said more are planning to resume service by May, including U.S. carriers, although they have yet to announce a return.
More flight availability is one of the reasons why Paldi says Ya’lla Tours decided to resume tours to Israel this spring.
“As of today, most European airlines, low-cost and scheduled airlines, are flying back to Israel, and by May all U.S. carriers will do it, as well,” Paldi said. “If the airlines deem Israel to be safe for them to fly, why not have tourists flying?”
Paldi also said that daily life in Israel has started to return to more normal conditions even though the war is still going on, adding that almost 200,000 of the 330,000 reservists who were drafted for the war have begun to be released and that “life in Israel is back 90% to what it was prior to Oct. 7,” with schools, universities, shopping malls, stadiums, museums, theatres and more back to full operation.
“We, as others, are taking baby steps in having tourists here and slowly. By the fall and for 2025, we will be fully operational,” Paldi said. “The war in Gaza is in an area we do not and never visit. The distance from Gaza to Jerusalem is 90 miles and from Gaza to Galilee is 160 miles. Tourists will never be even near any war area.”
Insuring Israel trips is difficult
Despite the inroads made toward bringing international travel back to Israel, challenges remain, such as getting trips to Israel insured.
“Insurance is a huge issue,” Yoseph said. “Travelers are having difficulty getting insurance.”
Parts of Israel, Yoseph said, are considered to be in a war zone, meaning portions of the country are closed to the public, which limits where tours can operate.
“You can’t run a regular trip even if you want to because a portion of the north is closed off as a war zone, and a large portion of the south is closed off,” Yoseph said.
The ruins of Caesarea Maritima on Israel’s northern coast. Photo Credit: Ya’lla Tours
Blocked access around Israel has also been hard on some of the local tour guides the company hires who Yoseph said come from the West Bank and have trouble getting through certain checkpoints.
In addition, Yoseph said that at one point recently, there had been a lot of rocket fire into central Israel, so tours could not be planned around visiting a national park because you have to be close to a bomb shelter.
“I think now it’s becoming a bit easier but those are the kinds of questions we’re getting, like ‘Are we going to be close to shelters? Are the hotels prepared for these situations if there is a rocket fired,'” Yoseph said, adding that these uncertainties are some of the reasons why it’s hard to get trips to Israel insured at the moment.
