Israel sees growing exodus as at least 82,000 leave country in 2024
The departure lounge of the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv on 29 September 2024
Middle East Eye reports on 1 January 2025:
More than 82,000 Israelis left the country in 2024 as the government pressed ahead with its brutal war on Gaza, official data revealed on Tuesday, according to Israeli outlet Ynet News.
Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics reported that 82,700 individuals left Israel in 2024, while only 23,800 returned.
Although the bureau did not state specific reasons for the exodus, previous reports have linked the departures to Israel’s ongoing wars in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and now Yemen.
In September, the bureau disclosed partial information that 40,600 Israelis had left long-term in just seven months – a staggering 59 percent rise compared to the same period in 2023, when 25,500 departed. On average, 2,200 more people per month left Israel in 2024 than the previous year.
The brain drain of people, often highly skilled doctors and professionals, highlights a trend among Israel’s elite, who increasingly believe they have no future in the country. Without them, Israel’s own future could hang in the balance.
Last month Avi Steinberg, an Israeli-born author, said that he had formally renounced his Israeli citizenship. Justifying his decision in an article for the left-leaning news publication Truthout, Steinberg said that Israeli citizenship had “always been a tool of genocide” that legitimised settler colonialism. “Israeli citizenship is predicated on the worst kinds of violent crimes we know of, and on a deepening litany of lies intended to whitewash those crimes,” he argued in the op-ed.