Is Israel Safe to Travel to During Regional War and Conflict?

Over the past 18 years I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Israel. Most recently I visited twice during the Israel-Gaza War. Based on my personal experience in the country in the spring and autumn of 2025 during the war, I’ve written this post to answer the question is Israel safe to travel to?

This post offers a quick look into war and conflict in Israel and wars in the surrounding region. It then focuses on the Israel-Hamas War and how it impacted Israelis and Palestinians. This is followed by insight into the PTSD soldiers and the general public are suffering. In this post you will also learn the one place in Israel that you should avoid during wartime or any time. This post concludes with what Israelis and Palestinians told me about war and Israel safety in 2025, words which have proven to be true.

Update: Due to the war with Iran 2026, the safety situation in Israel has deteriorated. Although a ceasefire is now in effect, attacks on Israel could resume at any moment. Consult your country’s travel advisory for further information and advice about traveling to Israel

Conflict and war in Israel

In early months of the Israel-Hamas War, rockets and missiles frequently struck Israel. This would set off sirens in the parts of the country that were under attack. Rockets and missiles were often striking buildings and landing in streets in front of oncoming traffic. One friend showed me a photo of a rocket that landed on the sidewalk next to her son’s daycare. It was not very safe to be in Israel as a citizen or as a tourist at that time.

Due to the many rockets and missile attacks, the government installed bomb shelters where previously there were none, or not enough, such as this shelter in the city of Tiberias.

While people around the world talk about “the war” in Israel, in reality there have been six separate wars or conflicts in Israel in the past couple of years, namely:

• • Israel-Palestine conflict
  • war with Hamas in Gaza
  • Iran War 2025 
  • Iran War 2026
  • conflict with the Houthis in Yemen
  • conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon

Two of these conflicts have already concluded. The 2025 Israel-Iran war lasted only 12 days. Virtually all attacks from the Houthis in Yemen have stopped. Most of Israel’s current conflicts, however, are long term.

The Israel-Palestine conflict has existed since 1948 and is perpetual. That conflict takes place mostly in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The war with Hamas in Gaza ended with a ceasefire which has largely held. I was actually in the country for the ceasefire and hostage release and wrote about what it’s like in Israel today after that experience. 

However, fighting in the 2026 war between Israel, the United States and Iran is likely to resume. Israel and Hezbollah are also still engaged in fighting in the northern part of Israel. So war and conflict in Israel is ongoing. 

The wars with Hamas and Hezbollah typically only impact certain areas; namely, Tel Aviv and the northern-most parts of Israel. However, with other actors recently getting involved in wars against Israel, more areas of the country are affected. The Houthis were able to (and may again in the future) target areas in the south of the country like Be’er Sheva and the Negev Desert. Iran has sent many missiles into Jerusalem. Some of them have hit the Old City, coming dangerously close to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Western Wall and the Temple Mount.

A missile exploded near the Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif in Jerusalem, a religious site vitally important to Jews & Muslims. If a direct hit were to occur, a far greater & more extraordinary situation than we have seen in our lifetimes would erupt in Israel & all the Middle East. pic.twitter.com/kKNddcjF5d

— Sabina Lohr (@SabinaLohr) March 1, 2026

There is always some type of conflict or war occurring in the Middle East. Nowadays there are more than usual, and most involve Israel. 

Related: In Israel for the ceasefire and hostage release

The efffects of war on Gaza, the West Bank and Israel

As mass media and social media reported, during the Israel-Hamas War the people of Gaza suffered tremendously. At least 70,000 Gazans were killed. Many more were injured. Well over 100,000 buildings were destroyed in Gaza and 81 percent of were damaged, according to UNOSAT. Rebuilding will take many years.

What the media doesn’t report is that the Palestinians who live in the West Bank suffered too. West Bank Palestinians suffered largely because October 7 damaged them economically, significantly diminishing their ability to earn income. After the start of the war, Israel revoked work permits for approximately 150,000 West Bank Palestinians who were working in Israel. Many Palestinian workers already had been replaced throughout the past decades by migrant workers. Once the war began, Israel began replacing even more Palestinian workers with South Asian and African workers. Now the economic situation in the West Bank became even worse than it was before the war.

What you will never hear the media report is that Israelis also suffered during the war. Many or even most Israelis did not want the war and did not agree with the words and actions of their government. Military duty is mandatory for Israeli Jews. So most military age Jewish Israelis have to serve whether they want to or not. Many of them served in Gaza, and many were killed there. Many others lost loved ones there.

Also, the October 7 attacks and subsequent hostage situation were extremely hard on Israelis. Israel is a very small and tight-knit country, with a population of less than 10 million people. On October 7, 2023 Hamas killed 1,200 of those people and kidnapped 251 more. It wasn’t until the end of the war that Hamas returned the last of the hostages who were still alive after being tortured and held in tunnels for two years. Eighty-five hostages died in Gaza and will never come home. Every single person in Israel was deeply negatively impacted by the war and hostage situation.

PTSD and Sirens in Israel

The Israel-Hamas War has caused everyone in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank to suffer from PTSD. During my time in Israel in 2025, the PTSD was noticeable. 

Even during times of relative peace, war sirens will sound in Israel when rockets are fired from Gaza or elsewhere. During wartime, the sirens obviously go off a lot more frequently. Personally I’ve only been in two locations when war sirens sounded. One was in Jerusalem and one was in Tel Aviv. Both were during Houthi attacks in 2025. In Jerusalem, I slept through the sirens and only knew they had gone off by reading about it in the news later that morning. In Tel Aviv, sirens awakened me in the middle of the night.

During that stay in Jerusalem, I heard screams one night from a military-aged Israeli man in the next room. Another time I heard him screaming again during the day. I shared this with an Israeli psychologist friend.  It was she who told me that many soldiers as well as civilians are suffering from PTSD now. 

Indeed, a woman who works at a kibbutz on the Sea of Galilee told me that the kibbutz had turned down the volume on its sirens before they sounded to commemorate Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day in April and Independence Day in May. This was because everyone had PTSD from the war sirens, making the holiday sirens intolerable.

Related: Facts about the Middle East

A word of warning about the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station

When you’re wondering is Israel safe to visit during war, you may not expect to read a warning about a bus station. However, I can honestly say that the most unsafe experience I’ve ever had  in Israel – not only during the war but in all of the time I’ve spent in the country throughout the years – was at the Tel Aviv bus station during the war in the Spring of 2025.

If you’ve been to Israel in the past, you may remember the Tel Aviv central bus station as a busy travel hub for both locals and tourists. Although its layout was mind-bogglingly confusing, thousands of people would pass through here daily while traveling from one location to another. Inside the bus station were many little shops and places to grab a bite to eat before or after your bus journey. This is no longer the case.

The Tel Aviv bus station has deteriorated significantly in recent years. It is now less of a bus station and more of a seedy hangout for drug addicts and people who have been smuggled into Israel through the Sinai. It is replete with guys lurking in stairwells leering at you and trying to get you to go inside an elevator with them. Dozens or even hundreds of people smuggled into the country now live in a bomb shelter underneath the bus station.  

The Tel Aviv central bus station transformed into this mess when train travel became more common in the country. Aside from drug addicts and other people living there, the bus station is today largely barren. The Tel Aviv central bus station is not safe. This is especially true for solo female travelers. Use one of the many bus stops elsewhere in the city or take the train instead.

Is Israel safe to travel to?

On the surface, the situation while I was in Israel for the war was relatively calm and normal. In many places it was business as usual. Because of this, I asked a wide range of people – Israelis, Palestinians and ethno-religious minorities in various parts of the country the question: “Do you think the war is over?”

One hundred percent of them resoundingly responded: “No.”

Why do you say that? I asked. A few of the replies I received were:

Because Netanyahu wants to continue the war with Hamas.

Everyone is just waiting for something else to happen.

Because there is still a chance people will do crazy things.

The shaky period of calm in Israel, indeed, did not last. The conflict between the Houthis, Israel and the United States began heating up shortly after my first wartime trip to Israel. People began wondering is Israel preparing to attack Iran? Shortly thereafter, the wondering ended when Iran attacked Israel. This kicked off a war, although it lasted only 12 days. However, there is now a new war with Iran.

When I originally wrote this post about is Israel safe for tourists, I concluded by saying that yes, it is safe to travel to Israel. However, now in this updated post I will say that Israel is not as safe as it was at that time. It seems that fighting between the United States, Israel and Iran will likely resume in the near future. This means Iran may very well strike Israel again. Unlike rockets from Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran’s missiles are powerful and are capable of striking anywhere in the country. Missiles from Iran could make Israel quite unsafe. For travel to Israel 2026, consult your country’s travel advisory for current information and advice.

If this post helped you better understand the region, feel free to share or reference it.

 

(This updated post was originally published on May 23, 2025.)