When Shay Bialik and her husband, Ido Dembin, left their nine-month-old baby to attend an Israeli-Palestinian peace conference in Paris, they thought surely they would be back in time for a meeting with doctors to discuss a surgery that could give their deaf daughter a chance to hear. But a few hours after they landed, Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran. Its skies are now closed indefinitely.

“I would swim to Israel to make sure we make it on time,” said Dembin.

The couple are now among more than 100,000 Israelis scrambling to find a way back home as their loved ones are under regular bombardment from Iranian ballistic missiles.

Israelis have crowded into nearby countries, like Cyprus and Greece, hoping to be in place for a flight as soon as they start back up again.

Some aren’t waiting for airlines. They are chartering boats of any kind—yachts, large passenger ships, tugboats—from Cyprus to Israel. Tickets can cost thousands of dollars for a single seat. Groups in Facebook, WhatsApp and Telegram have sprouted to help connect Israelis to these pricey options. Neat excel sheets show names, numbers, locations and prices of seats. Others, if they can get tickets, are flying into Egypt and Jordan and crossing land borders back into Israel.

This is the first time Israel’s airspace has been closed this long in its 76-year history, and it remains unclear when it will reopen. Many Israelis say they have felt abandoned by their government, which appeared to have no effective plan in place to help those stranded abroad once the surprise attack began.

Yaakov Katz, an American-Israeli journalist who wrote a book called “Israel Vs. Iran,” found himself caught up in the conflict when his flight to Tel Aviv from London on Thursday night was rerouted to Paphos, Cyprus.

The plane waited on the tarmac for hours before one of the crew announced they would disembark and it would be “every man for himself.” The announcement caused a few passengers to hyperventilate, and they required oxygen masks, Katz said.

After a few days, Katz booked a flight to Amman, Jordan. But before his flight left for Jordan, he received a call offering him a spot on a small tugboat leaving Cyprus with room for nine passengers and four crewmen. He quickly jumped in a cab and paid 1,500 euros for a seat, worth $1,720. As the boat moved through the sea, it traveled straight in the direction of exploding missiles lighting up the nighttime sky, he recalled.

“There is a war here and I want to be with my family,” said Katz, speaking from Israel. “There is no other place to be in the world except next to them.”

On Tuesday, the country’s transportation minister, Miri Regev, said the government had a “phased, organized” plan set in place before it launched the attack on Iran. She said Israeli planes had been ordered to leave Israel’s territory as soon as the first bombing run began, and directed to destinations in Europe and the U.S. where Israelis would be expected to congregate for return flights. She said the next phase would allow only incoming flights and give priority to members of security services and reservists who need to return for duty, as well as those who need to come home for medical or family emergencies.

“There is nothing to be worried about. If you are abroad, enjoy,” Regev said in remarks on Monday.

The comment infuriated many Israelis struggling to get home.

“The Ministry of Transportation is saying just enjoy yourself while abroad and our children are in mortal danger. That is delusional,” said Aliza Landes, 42, a mother of two.

When she had tried early in the week to book a flight on the website for Israel’s El Al airlines, there were more than 20,000 people in front of her.

“It is the same process but more chaotic than buying a Burning Man ticket,” she said, referring to the popular desert festival. She booked a flight to Aqaba, Jordan, that was canceled, and now she’s looking for another way home from Cyprus.

While Israelis were trying to get back into the country, tourists were scrambling to get out.

One of the largest groups of tourists in Israel when the attack started were participants on Birthright, a program that brings Jews from around the world to visit and learn about Israel.

The organization rented a luxury Israeli cruise ship to take 2,800 people, largely but not exclusively Americans, from Israel’s Ashdod Port to Larnaca, Cyprus, under the close protection of the Israeli Navy. The organization said the boat would be used to help Israelis get back to Israel for the return trip. The first batch of 1,500 left for Cyprus Tuesday morning.

From Cyprus, the group will board four planes chartered by Florida—an initiative led by Gov. Ron DeSantis—and land in Tampa, from where they will fly to their respective hometowns.

Emergency flights back into Israel are expected to begin on Wednesday, but will be limited to a handful of planes that can carry around a total of 2,000 people daily. There is no clear timeline for when departures will restart.

For many Israelis like Bialik and Dembin, the future is still uncertain. They managed to get one-way tickets from Paris to Tel Aviv for 800 euros each, but their flight isn’t for another week and depends on the volatile security situation.

Meanwhile, their daughter is staying with her grandparents in Rehovot, a town in central Israel where the couple also lives. A ballistic missile landed near enough to their home on Sunday to shatter windows.

“I miss her very much,” Bialik said of her daughter. “It is part of your heart that you can’t see or protect.