Below is the latest information regarding outbound travel from Israel for American citizens. Read on to learn about several important clarifications from Chaim V’Chessed.
State Department Flights Suspended; El Al Evacuation Flights
The U.S. State Department has suspended its special evacuation flights following its arrangement with El Al. In response, El Al has increased its planned flights to the United States from six to eight.
These flights are intended for passengers with existing El Al tickets, as well as those with no tickets or tickets on other airlines. At this time, however, only El Al ticket holders have been placed on these flights. Non–El Al passengers have not yet been successfully ticketed, though El Al has reportedly committed to the U.S. State Department.to accommodate all U.S. citizens.
All passengers seeking to travel are strongly encouraged to register as soon as possible using this link.
Important Clarifications
Ticket Eligibility
Primarily, passengers holding a one-way ticket to the United States, or those on the final leg of an itinerary returning to the United States, are being placed on these flights. Often, passengers with round-trip tickets originating in Tel Aviv, traveling to the U.S., and returning to Israel are not being accommodated. The chief purpose of these flights is to return American citizens who are currently stranded in Israel – not to provide round-trip travel. Passengers in this situation who have purchased tickets from travel agencies should reach out to their travel agent for assistance.
Family Members of U.S. Citizens
El Al has stated that only passengers holding U.S. passports may fly on the so-called “rescue flights.” There remains some uncertainty regarding spouses and family members of U.S. citizens who are not themselves American citizens. Based on current information, those who can demonstrate legal residence in the United States with their American family members will likely be permitted to travel. Individuals without clear proof of U.S. residency may not be allowed to board.
Additional Flight Options
Arkia, Israir and Air Haifa continue to operate flights to various destinations. In some cases, experienced travel agents may be able to secure seats for passengers, though availability is severely limited and fares are often high.
The Igud/Eretz HaKodesh flights from Taba began operating today, with two additional flights scheduled later this week. These flights are already fully or nearly fully booked. Separately, Lalechet continues to operate flights from Sharm al Sheikh.
{Matzav.com}
A man was moderately wounded Monday evening after being struck by shrapnel at Kabri Junction in the Western Galilee, as emergency forces across the region responded to several impact locations following launches from Lebanon.
The injured man was treated at the scene before being transported to the hospital in Nahariya for additional medical care.
דיווח על פגיעה ישירה בנהריה, תיעוד: רגע הנפילה בעירhttps://t.co/0imLHwZUoA | @OrRavid pic.twitter.com/dETGhyzxnL
— החדשות – N12 (@N12News) March 16, 2026
At the same time, police units from the Coastal District, along with Israel Border Police officers and police bomb disposal teams, were dispatched to several sites in Nahariya where projectiles had landed.
Authorities reported that at one of the locations, a residential home sustained a direct strike that ignited a fire. Emergency responders managed to rescue members of the family inside the building and evacuated six individuals to the hospital due to smoke inhalation. Those hospitalized included two children and four adults.
The Israel Defense Forces is investigating whether an interceptor missile malfunctioned during an attempted interception and subsequently struck the house in Nahariya. Officials said the circumstances surrounding the incident remain under review.
Tal Volovitz, spokesperson for the Israel Fire and Rescue Services, told Kan Reshet Bet that emergency crews are having difficulty reaching some of the sites due to ongoing waves of sirens.
A wave of dangerous winter weather combined with staffing problems tied to a TSA pay freeze caused widespread travel disruptions across the United States on Monday, forcing more than 2,000 flight cancellations and bringing operations at several major airports to a standstill.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that major hubs were heavily affected as ground stops were issued early Monday morning. Flights were halted at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Charlotte Douglas International Airport, while George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston experienced significant ground delays.
Beyond the thousands of canceled flights, the disruptions spread nationwide, with more than 9,500 additional flights delayed, Duffy said.
The aviation turmoil coincided with a powerful round of late-winter storms striking large portions of the country Monday and Tuesday.
In the Midwest, communities were contending with blizzard conditions, while states across the eastern United States faced severe thunderstorms expected to produce powerful winds and possible flooding, according to AccuWeather.
Meteorologists warned that the storm system could impact roughly 200 million people.
Air travelers were already struggling with airport delays before the storms intensified, as a pay freeze affecting airport security officers created staffing shortages. Because security personnel were working without pay during the partial government shutdown, roughly 300 TSA workers resigned.
The funding lapse occurred on Feb. 13 after Congress failed to reach an agreement on immigration enforcement changes sought by Democrats.
Scenes from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport showed long lines of passengers waiting outside the terminal early Monday morning as travelers attempted to pass through security checkpoints.
Airport officials advised passengers at the time to arrive at least two and a half hours before domestic departures. By late morning, however, security lines had returned to normal levels, according to a post from Austin-Bergstrom’s X account.
The Trump administration has laid the blame on the TSA hiccups on Democrats for the partial funding stop.
{Matzav.com}
President Donald Trump issued a pair of lengthy social media messages late Sunday sharply criticizing the Supreme Court and a federal district judge, accusing members of the judiciary of political bias and condemning a recent ruling that struck down tariffs he imposed under emergency economic authority.
Trump’s comments followed a Supreme Court decision issued last month that invalidated key tariffs he enacted using national emergency powers. The justices ruled by a 6–3 margin that the tariffs went beyond the authority granted to the president under a 1977 emergency economic law, determining that the Constitution assigns Congress—not the president—the authority to impose import duties.
In his first post on Truth Social, Trump expressed frustration with the court and took aim at justices who, in his view, fail to support the presidents who appointed them.
“The Democrats on the Court always ‘stick together,’ no matter how strong a case is put before them — There is rarely even a minor ‘waver,'” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “But Republicans do not do this.
“They openly disrespect the Presidents who nominate them to the highest position in the Land, a Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and go out of their way, with bad and wrongful rulings and intentions, to prove how ‘honest,’ ‘independent,’ and ‘legitimate’ they are.”
Trump emphasized that the ruling on tariffs was particularly significant to him, arguing that the decision could ultimately benefit foreign competitors that he says have exploited American markets for years.
“The decision that mattered most to me was TARIFFS!” Trump wrote. “The Court knew where I stood, how badly I wanted this Victory for our Country, and instead decided to, potentially, give away Trillions of Dollars to Countries and Companies who have been taking advantage of the United States for decades.”
Despite the ruling limiting the specific emergency powers he had relied upon, the decision noted that the president still has the ability to impose tariffs through other statutory avenues. Following the decision, administration officials began examining additional trade actions and potential investigations aimed at reinstating tariff protections and responding to foreign trade practices.
Trump also voiced appreciation for the three justices who dissented in the case—Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Brett Kavanaugh—praising what he described as their “Wisdom and Courage,” while accusing the court’s liberal members of voting in lockstep for political reasons.
“Our Supreme Court has made these Countries very happy,” Trump wrote, adding that he will “fight hard” to ensure American interests are protected.
In a separate Truth Social post, Trump shifted his focus to the federal court system and criticized a judge who recently blocked a Justice Department investigation related to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
The case involved subpoenas connected to a probe into Powell’s congressional testimony about the Federal Reserve’s costly renovation of its Washington headquarters. On Friday, a federal judge ruled that prosecutors had failed to present sufficient evidence to justify the subpoenas, writing that investigators produced “essentially zero evidence” of wrongdoing.
Trump responded by condemning the ruling and directly attacking the judge who issued it, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, accusing him of partisan hostility.
“I strongly criticized Jerome ‘Too Late’ for his horrible performance throughout his tenure, which is either gross incompetence, total dishonesty, or both,” Trump wrote, “and, in return for this well justified criticism, get viciously and wrongfully blamed by, as usual, a Wacky, Nasty, Crooked, and totally Out of Control Judge, named James Boasberg, a man who suffers from the highest level of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), and has been ‘after’ my people, and me, for years.”
Trump argued that the renovation of the Federal Reserve’s headquarters had ballooned into an expensive and unnecessary project that deserved further scrutiny by investigators.
He concluded by accusing the judge of allowing politics to shape his decisions from the bench.
“What Boasberg has done on the ‘Too Late’ Powell case, and many others, has little to do with the Law, and everything to do with Politics,” Trump wrote.
{Matzav.com}
Agudath Israel of America is pleased to announce the opening of its Holocaust collection on the Agudah Archive website (https://agudaharchive.org/holocaust/351).
The thousands of documents in this collection paint a picture of the Holocaust’s impact on the history of European Orthodox Jewry and World Jewry’s valiant rescue efforts during and immediately following the horrors of the Holocaust. This aspect of Holocaust history has been neglected in most public archives and collections.
Until now, these documents have only been available in physical form, in the Orthodox Jewish Archives at Agudah headquarters. With assistance from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, supported by the German Federal Ministry of Finance, these documents are being digitized, organized and uploaded, in many themed collections.
The first three collections are now up on the website. The first, Holocaust interviews, contains over 70 audio interviews with Holocaust survivors. The second and third collections feature two periodicals, Jewish Opinion and Orthodox Tribune (originally Orthodox Youth or Agudah Youth), which were published by Zeirei Agudath Israel of America in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. These publications, over 50 issues with hundreds of pages of news and articles, give a window into the progression of the war and its aftermath. For example, the Adar 1942 issue includes a front page with the headline “On Nazi Atrocities,” news about rescue and about Agudah’s efforts to help with religious education for children that were sent to the land of Israel, and an op-ed by Jacob (Moreinu Yaakov) Rosenheim, ”The Right Answer to Hitler’s Challenge.”
These collections are the first of many that will be available to readers and scholars in the Holocaust section of the Agudah archives.
Agudath Israel’s executive vice president Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel welcomed the on-line publication of the three collections as “an important milestone in the area of Holocaust education.”
“Our Gedolei Yisroel have encouraged us to know for ourselves what transpired during the Holocaust, and to teach it to our children, so that we will never forget this dark era, and so that we will forever be inspired by the spiritual heroism displayed by so many holy Jews . With the on-line publication of these three archival collections – and b’ezras Hashem many more collections to come — Agudath Israel is making a treasure trove of primary source materials accessible to the broad Jewish public. This is a truly historic achievement.”
Rabbi Zwiebel expressed Agudath Israel’s gratitude to the many people who were involved in this project, including Rabbi Moshe Kolodny, Agudah’s Archivist Emeritus, responsible for the founding and growth of the Orthodox Jewish Archives; Rabbi Yossi Aszkenazy, who has been funding and digitizing thousands of hours of historic Agudah recordings; the Levy and Cohen families, sponsors of the online archive; the Claims Conference and the German government, who are funding the Holocaust digitization project; Rabbi Labish Becker, Executive Director of Agudath Israel and Administrator of the Holocaust digitization project; and Ms. Judith Dinowitz, Project Lead.
