In July of 2024, a group of us went to Israel on a solidarity tour to provide aid to the nation and witness with our own eyes the events of October 7th. This is what we saw.
While current events have us hooked on the war itself, there remains two significant details that get overlooked.
I have to admit, these details have even slipped my own mind before I visited the country. While it may flicker in and out of attention for many outside the Land of Israel, they are dynamic details for local Israelis.
The issues are Israel’s daily life and economy.
My first visit to Israel was a 2 week tour in 2008. In 2009 I had the chance to volunteer in The Land while staying in Jerusalem for 6 months. Later in 2017, I had the chance to come back for 3 months to do more volunteer work.
On each occasion the economy was booming! People from all over the world arrived on Religious Pilgrimages, toured the land, and packed the local restaurants, shops, and markets in large number. The Times of Israel reports,
Some 3.6 million tourists visited Israel in 2017.
Lion Travel Group shares,
...Israel has broken its record of tourist entries with 4,551,600 in 2019 from across the globe. This record is a 10 percent increase over 2018, which saw 4,120,800 tourist arrivals.
On our July 2024 tour, almost everywhere we journeyed, I saw places that once used to be overwhelmed with business now stand quieter than ghost towns. The reason for this: lack of tourism.
The Media Line shares,
Since the beginning of 2024, 400,000 tourists entered the country. In the same months of January and May 2023, there were almost two million tourist entrants into Israel.
With these new numbers, this means Israel has suffered nearly a 75% drop in tourism this year alone.
Our 2024 solidarity tour was through Sar-El, which is one of the biggest—if not the largest—tour agencies in Israel. When we first arrived in Tel-Aviv, our leaders informed us that our group was the only tour that Sar-El was hosting at that time.
I almost could not believe what I heard. A large part of Israel’s economy is vastly driven by tourism: from most of your grand hotels to your mom and pop restaurants to your local ice cream stands depend on tourism for a vast percentage of their business.
At full-time hours, tour guides in The Land often host two to three tours a month. Our tour guide shared with us that since October 7th she has guided a total of two tours; our group was her second.
When we visited Galilee, I spoke with a woman who shared that her husband is a tour guide, who had his entire year scheduled for tours. Since October 7th, he has not had a single tour.
The state of the local economy was displayed to us in heartbreaking visual representations. Nearly every place we stayed and iconic site we visited was almost empty or at least serving to thin crowds of people.
Some hotels had an option by the government to host displaced Israelis who were forced to evacuate their homes from the north and south due to the wars against Hamas and Hezbollah and receive government financial assistance to accommodated the living expenses of those forced to leave because of the war. The remaining hotels depended upon local Israelis vacationing in their own land or international tourism.
Many times, we would walk into a hotel and find that our group of twenty or so would be nearly 50 percent of the occupants at that time.
Common sites that would be normally packed with people, like Qumran, were all but empty. This video I took below was our group dining in the cafeteria of Qumran. In the past, this place would be at least half full at all times, loud with multiple conversations spoken in different languages from around the world. Our group was the only ones dining there at the time.
We spoke with one of the managers of the Qumran site, and he shared,
“We are lucky if we get one group a day.”
Our tour spent its final days in Jerusalem. This city is known as the most holy city of the world. Jews, Christians, and Muslims travel internationally to this city to pray and visit sites holy to their faith.
Before October 7th, as you entered through Jaffa Gate, you would walk straight and enter the market streets.
These roads would be beyond packed and crowded—too numerous to count. Doors of shop owners would be thrown open, displaying a colorful array of local merchandise representative of Israeli culture. Now, most shop doors are closed, and the roads that once led through a forest of items to buy were occupied by the few shops able to stay afloat.
I had to chance to speak with our tour guide about how Israelis are able to accommodate such financial conditions, especially being fresh off Covid and now with multiple countries forcing war and economic crisis upon the nation. She replied,
“Many have had to close their shops permanently. Others are pursuing different career paths, and others are seeking government financial assistance.”
This is especially seen for the Israeli citizen who is called up to serve and protect their country in this difficult time. This Israeli army is made up of businessmen and women who have had to put aside their careers—many have had to close their business permanently—because they were called up to serve and protect their country. Some shops have a chance of reopening, while others are far less fortunate; yet for the individual called to serve, protecting their countrymen at the cost of their career is a sacrifice they were more than willing to offer—may God bless them for it, too!
I saw and heard many devastating sights and stories. Seeing the current emptiness of the nation was possibly the hardest for me. On a personal level, this was a place where I spent half a year at eighteen years old: I went to Ulpan to learn Hebrew and volunteered at the local congregation that took me in and at the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens. To see a nation that took you in like its own, that you love so much, be affected by terrorism and heartbreaking current events was devastating.
I share all of this because such issues become so overlooked during times of war. Our eyes become fixated on political debates and the most recent attacks and retaliations, that we forget the locals who are suffering in this and how we can help.
Of course we should be constantly speaking the truth of current events taking place and standing against the injustices committed against Israel, but in so doing, we must never forget those who get so easily forgotten.
The irony is that this can turn around so easily. While there, I never felt scared or in fear of my life. The war fronts of Gaza were far from the sites we visited, and the only time we got close was while visiting the Nova Music Festival site and one of the local Kibbutzim (blogs soon to come about these).
I write this to say now is the time for the west to act, and one of the ways we can act is through solitary tours. Maintain the site-seeing tours; this would only bless the nation of Israel, but this time needs to be different.
Churches and synagogues across America and Western civilization need to start solidarity tours, where the groups are there to give back to Israel for all that she has given to us.
In July 2024, our group volunteered to help prepare accommodations for new Israelis who were making citizenship, helped at a children’s medical organization, held prayer ministry evenings, saw the sites, listened to testimonies, became witnesses of the truth, and more.
In my city alone, if each synagogue and church just sent one representative from their local community each month, every tour agency would be packed with volunteers swarming the nation to provide aid and support.
This is the time for the nations to have a “Here I am, Lord! Send me!” mindset. This is our time to give! This is our turn to tour The Land, not to take but to give freely.
When God says, “Whom shall I send,” what will your response be?
Taking A Solidarity Tour
If you are wanting to attend, or wishing to sponsor someone else to attend, a solidarity tour in Israel, I strongly encourage going through Generation to generation. To inquire about their upcoming tours for 2025, please click here.
To learn more about this series, click here.
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