An Israeli high school heritage trip to Poland ended with a dramatic journey home after the US-Israeli strikes on Iran left travelers unable to return to Israel via their scheduled flight.

After being stranded in Krakow following the closure of Israel’s airspace Saturday morning, the delegation of about 90 students in the 11th and 12th grades from the Shacharit religious high schools in Kfar Adumim and Jerusalem returned to Israel Wednesday evening. They got there after being sent by government officials on a trip that took them through Taba, the Egyptian city on Israel’s southern border.

The nearly 24-hour trip was emotional and exhausting for students and faculty, Shacharit principal Roni Hazon Weiss told The Times of Israel. All of the 850 students who were stuck in Poland on various trips have now been brought back safely to Israel, Israeli media reported Thursday.

When the Iran conflict began early Saturday morning, the group was told not to leave the hotel, Hazon Weiss recalled. The morning’s planned visit with Holocaust survivors at the nearby JCC was moved to the hotel, and additional security was brought in.

The students’ return flight on Monday was canceled, “and at that point, we didn’t know how we were going to get back,” she said.

Later, she was told that repatriation flights would be arranged through Taba. Apprehensive regarding the challenges of such a trip, Hazon Weiss asked the Association for the Advancement of Education, which runs the schools and arranged the trip, if the school’s flight could be delayed until after other similar flights........

© The Times of Israel