Reverse exodus: How the Iran war turned Egypt's Taba into Israelis’ escape route

Just after 8:15 a.m. on Saturday, February 28, 2026, the Home Front Command’s alert sounded on phones across Israel. People awoke to a country at war. Its airspace had been closed since 2:20 a.m., and there were no flights in or out of Ben-Gurion Airport.

“The United States military is undertaking a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests,” he said.

On February 27, the US Embassy in Jerusalem had posted, “Persons may want to consider leaving Israel while commercial flights are available.” But by March 2, the embassy informed: “The Israeli Ministry of Tourism has begun operating shuttles to the Taba Border Crossing.” And thus, Taba became the site of the reverse Exodus of 2026.

Lewin said, “We saw on February 27 that [US Ambassador to Israel] Mike Huckabee put out the message that all Americans who want to leave should leave ‘TODAY!!’ capital letters, right? Exclamation points. I saw that message, and my parents sent me a text, and they said, ‘You should pack your bags and go now.’” Lewin was able to book a “rescue flight” out of Taba International Airport.

Lewin had also learned from posts on Facebook that there would be no food at the Taba airport “because of Ramadan or other reasons.” So they packed: “Then we made sandwiches… I had all this food in the fridge; a lot of yellow cheese, eggs, avocados. It would go bad while we were in America. So one of my daughters made a series of sandwiches that she labeled.”

Nab Raz is a Jerusalem native, part of the city’s Coptic Christian community. “My family has been here since the early 1800s. My great-grandfather came from Egypt,” he said.

A licensed tour guide at Swiftways, Raz works with drivers and guides in Israel and neighboring countries. The war’s outbreak found Raz leading an American family on their last day of touring. “They had a midnight flight on February 28. It was canceled.” He told them how it was during the 12-Day War in June 2025: “I said, ‘Listen, I’ve evacuated many people through the border to Egypt and Jordan.’”

Reacting quickly, a family member went online and found seats on a rescue flight out of Sharm-el-Sheikh International Airport. With bags already packed, they began the journey from Jerusalem. “We were crossing down the Eilat road and had to stop on the side because rockets had started.” It was during this drive that the family received a call from a relative. “I think a sister, or cousin,” Raz noted. “The relative was very emotional, afraid for their safety. They were, I think, even crying on the phone. But the family told them, ‘Don’t worry. We have Nab. He’s taking us to the border. He knows what he’s doing.’”

Sonia Prais is a mother and grandmother originally from England. With family in Israel and North America, she and her husband divide their time between both places. They were on a visit to her Israel-based mother when the war began.

“We were flying United [Airlines], and the flights kept canceling,” she said. “I was happy to stay, but we had business in New York, and my kids were coming for Pesach.”

Prais and her husband booked a rescue flight through Taba.

And while things were organized on the Israeli side, that changed when they crossed the border and put their bags on the conveyor belt at the airport.

“This guy’s looking at my carry-on and sees something glistening. So he pulls my bag, opens it, opens my jewelry case… and he’s opening all my jewelry, and he’s going, in English, ‘Nice, nice,’ and he’s trying to look at it, he wants to take it, he calls somebody over,” Prais said. “And the guy’s getting aggressive. So I said, ‘lt’s my jewelry, and it’s fake.’ My husband came over. He said, ‘We’re American, it’s fake, back off, dude.’ So finally, they put it away, but I was like, ‘Wow, it’s really lawless.’ And then we got through to the other side.”

Benjamin Anthony is the CEO and co-founder of the MirYam Institute, which is focused on Israel policy and travel discussion. An oleh from the United Kingdom, he is an IDF combat veteran. During the early days of the war, Anthony accompanied a colleague on her crossing through Taba. It’s a trip he considers unsafe, due to the potential for crime, especially during isolated stretches of travel between the border and airports, and due to dilapidated roads.

Anthony recalled, “About 10 minutes into the journey, you turn off the main road onto another road. It’s a zigzagging road, in disrepair and severely potholed. There are little trenches on either side and enormous cliffs. At various points, you have a cellular network; at various points, you don’t. And the drivers drive at speed on the wrong side of the road without knowing what’s oncoming, through severe blind spots.”

Attorney Michael Ballard is a New Yorker who lives in Israel and travels for business, which was how he found himself in Taba. He described his experience in Egypt, where he spent the night at a hotel prior to heading to the airport, as “accommodating,” saying that while the people were friendly, he was somewhat nervous.

“We have a peace treaty, but we’re at war, and you never know,” he said.  Like Anthony, he spoke about the drive to the Taba airport. “As we drove down the road, you see vans stopped at a military checkpoint, queued up. Then all the cars take off at once. And these vans are racing up this winding mountain road, passing each other, across double lines. And I kept joking with the driver, ‘I’m going to get killed going to the airport,’ and he laughed and was like, ‘No problem, no problem.’”

Experiencing Taba has long been a rite of passage for the young Israeli, but with the war in Iran it’s become an exit strategy – a reverse Exodus – for those looking to leave the country.