The U.S. Department of State says that beginning less than a week after the assault on Israel the agency has offered more than 6,300 seats on U.S. government-chartered transport by air, land and sea to U.S. citizens and their immediate family members. 

Five of those people include a Rochester woman, her husband, a 6-month-old baby, as well as her 6 and 9-year-old sons.

What You Need To Know

  • U.S. State Dept. evacuates former Monroe County resident & family from Israel

  • Rachel Present returned to Rochester after living in Israel for 14 years. When the conflict began she left with her husband and three young children

  • The U.S. Embassy, U.S. State Department,  and Congressman Joe Morelle’s office assisted in arranging the evacuation of the family from Tel Aviv on board a U.S. State Department chartered aircraft

“We were getting ready to celebrate because it was 14 years to the day that I moved to Israel," said Rachel Present.

Oct. 7 was set to be a great day for Rachel and her family, but it was doomed from the start.

“I was woken by the siren and I said to my husband there’s a siren, there’s a siren and he was like what?" Rachel said.

Born and raised in Rochester, Rachel spent the last 14 years of her life living in Israel.

“We have such a wonderful community, everybody takes care of each other and each other’s kids," said Rachel. "But when she heard the sirens, everything changed. We grabbed the kids. I grabbed the baby and he took the big kids and we went out of the apartment very quickly down two flights of stairs to the bomb shelter in our building.”

As the assault on Israel unfolded and days passed, Rachael and her husband made a difficult decision.

“All of the rockets were still happening and there was no school obviously and my kids are lucky that Rochester is really their second home. So we decided that it made sense to come back for a little while to take a break from the conflict," said Rachel.

By this time it was difficult to get a flight out of Israel. So the U.S. Embassy, U.S. Department of State and Congressman Joe Morelle’s office stepped in. 

With only hours' notice, Rachel and her family were told to get to the airport in Tel Aviv where they would be evacuated on board a U.S. State Department chartered aircraft.

“We got to the airport. There were U.S. Embassy staff there to meet us and they were amazing, they were so kind, they were so organized, they helped us get to where we needed to go, did we need anything for the baby, they got us through security they got us through wherever we needed," said Rachel.

She says it was an older plane, not a typical commercial plane.

“They were trying to get as many flights out that day as possible, so they were really, really rushing people to sit. They were like, it doesn’t matter where you sit you just need to sit because we need to take off," said Rachel. "And we sort of thought it was a bit brisk and then they told us over the loudspeaker that all of the flight attendants were volunteers. They had volunteered to come into a war zone to help people get to safety and I thought that was so beautiful and really such a sign of the strong partnership between the United States and Israel and the values that we share.”

Rachel says she’s confident in Israel’s ability to protect her family but for now, feels it’s best for her family to live away from the conflict.

The Department of State says it has no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas.