First flight from Israel arrives in Florida after DeSantis order

The first flight carrying American citizens from Israel arrived in Florida on Sunday as part of the executive order Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) issued last week authorizing the rescue of Floridians in Israel amid the country’s fight with Palestinian militant group Hamas.

DeSantis’s office announced nearly 300 American evacuees who were unable to leave Israel due to commercial flight cancellations arrived in Florida on Sunday. More than 270 people landed in Tampa and another seven in Orlando and received support from multiple state agencies, the governor’s office said.

“Today we welcomed nearly 300 Americans who have been in Israel since last week, when the violent attacks by Hamas terrorists began,” DeSantis wrote Sunday in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Project Dynamo, a nonprofit organization focused on the evacuation of Americans, assisted in the rescue efforts.

The Florida Division of Emergency Management is expected to lead additional flights to take additional supplies to Israel and bring Floridians back home.

The Florida governor’s office also announced it is sending medical supplies, hygiene products, clothing and children’s toys to Israel for those impacted by the violence.

DeSantis, who is also running in the 2024 Republican presidential primary race, has repeatedly condemned Hamas’s attacks on Israel, as have other American lawmakers, world leaders and groups. The attacks have claimed the lives of more than 1,400 Israelis, the vast majority of whom died in the militant group’s initial surprise assaults on Israeli villages, farms and military outposts on Oct. 7.

Israel quickly launched a major counteroffensive against Hamas, which controls Gaza, in the form of hundreds of air strikes in the Gaza Strip over the past week. The air strikes forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians out of their homes and into shelters.

At least 2,670 Palestinians have died in the conflict, with an additional 9,600 others being wounded, the Gaza Health Ministry said Sunday. The death toll has surpassed that of the 2014 Gaza war, which lasted more than six weeks. It is the deadliest of the five Gaza wars for both sides.

Adding to the crisis is Israel’s siege on food, water and medical supplies to Gaza. Israeli forces last Friday also ordered more than 1.1 million people in Gaza — almost half of the territory’s population — to move south ahead of an expected ground assault on the territory.

Israel’s siege and evacuation orders have received harsh condemnation from humanitarian agencies like the World Health Organization (WHO), which called the evacuations from northern Gaza “a death sentence” for the sick and injured.

DeSantis commented on Israel’s counteroffensive on Sunday, arguing it is “not collective punishment” for the 2.3 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip.

Asked on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” if collective punishment is something he supports, DeSantis said, “It’s not collective punishment. Hamas is the one that is creating this predicament. Hamas is the one who always uses civilian targets to conduct operations.” 

Over the weekend, DeSantis received some blowback over remarks he made on the campaign trail in which he called all Palestinians in Gaza “antisemitic.”

DeSantis on Saturday argued the U.S. shouldn’t take in any Palestinian refugees fleeing from Gaza or any Palestinian Arabs. Pressed over the comment on Sunday, DeSantis said, “Those [in] Gaza are refugees; Palestinian Arabs should go to Arab countries.”

DeSantis also argued during the “Face the Nation” interview that the Gaza Strip’s education system teaches “kids to hate Jews” and that importing large numbers of refugees would “increase anti-Semitism” and “anti-Americanism” in the U.S.