‘Like Déjà Vu’: After Fleeing Russia’s Invasion, Ukrainians In Israel Face A New War

Tetyana Kosheva’s flashbacks to Russia’s war on Ukraine started with the sound of explosions and air-raid sirens as Hamas fighters entered Ashkelon, the Israeli city where she moved in July 2022 to escape the persistent Russian bombardment of her hometown, Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine.

Ashkelon, 7 kilometers north of the Gaza Strip, was a major target of the invasion of Israel by Hamas on October 7.

Along with her three children, Kosheva initially took refuge from the assault on Ashkelon in the corridor of her apartment building, reading on her cell phone that “terrorists have gotten into [the city], that they’ve shot people,” she said. The family eventually moved to a bomb shelter before volunteers drove them an hour north the next day, to a vacant apartment near Tel Aviv.

“It’s like déjà vu. I’ve already seen this. I’ve already experienced something like this,” Kosheva said.

“I was sitting in a basement in my city,” she said of Kharkiv. “I was looking for a car, for volunteers [to help]. I was leaving. And, again, it was the same thing. Again, the children. Again, [getting] those bags in 30 minutes. Everything repeated itself.”

Ukrainians who fled to Israel following Russia’s full-scale invasion of their country in February 2022 now find themselves scrambling to adapt to another war. Some are leaving the country, uprooted for the second time in 20 months, while others are staying put.

WATCH: After escaping Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, some 14,000 Ukrainian nationals who fled to Israel have found themselves under attack again as Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on the country.

In the northern Israeli city of Haifa, Kyiv native Kateryna Senchenko, who left Ukraine after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, moved into a bomb shelter on October 7.

“Everything is reminiscent of Ukraine when the large-scale war began,” she said, citing nonstop live TV broadcasts with experts, government spokespeople, and Defense Ministry officials.

“How much can you put up with? What is wrong with this world? Why, within two years of my life, am I experiencing the start of a war for the second time?” she asked.

Eighteen Ukrainian citizens in Israel were killed in the Hamas attack on October 7, and one remains missing, according to the Ukrainian Embassy.

It’s unclear how many refugees from the war in Ukraine are in Israel.
About 15,000 Ukrainian nationals are registered at the Ukrainian Embassy, but Ukrainian Ambassador Yevhen Korniychuk said that figure “doesn’t mean anything” since it only reflects those who chose to register.

Also, it could include Ukrainians whose arrival in Israel is not connected to the Russian aggression against Ukraine.

“In general, the number of our citizens [in Israel] is crazy,” Korniychuk said. He estimated that “about half a million” members of the Russian-speaking community in Israel are from Ukraine.

The embassy is badly strapped for funds and is limited in what it can do to assist with evacuations, Korniychuk said, adding that it will not fly Ukrainian nationals back to Ukraine.

“We do not have anywhere [in Ukraine] to evacuate the people,” he stated. “We will not transport people from one war to another war. Our main goal is to get as many people out as possible in a short period of time.”

As of October 22, four Ukrainian evacuation flights had left Israel for Romania, carrying a total of 515 Ukrainian passengers, according to the Ukrainian Embassy. A spokesperson for the Romanian Foreign Ministry denied to RFE/RL’s Romanian Service a claim on social media that the Romanian government is paying for these flights.

The Ukrainian Embassy said it negotiated a lower price for Ukrainian evacuees on outbound commercial flights — between 415 and 450 euros ($440-$470) per ticket, which it described as “the lowest price on the market.”

Korniychuk stated that he had found Israel-based sponsors who can solve “a significant part” of the embassy’s “problems” with these evacuations — an apparent reference to its search for “financing options” for those unable to afford a flight out.

One Ukrainian evacuee, Oksana Sokolovska, who traveled with her three children to Romania on the first evacuation flight on October 14 for 415 euros ($440) per ticket, said that she had received a free two-day stay in a Romanian hotel, but must buy train and bus tickets at her own expense to return to Ukraine.

These difficulties, however, do not appear to have abated all interest.

“Every day, as the war gathers pace, there are more and more people who want to [leave], and fewer and fewer opportunities,” Sokolovska said.

A coordinator at the nongovernmental Refugee Assistance Center in Haifa, which provides for some 1,650 Ukrainian, Belarusian, Russian and other families, worried that the Israel-Hamas war worsen the lives of Ukrainian refugees.

The Israeli government announced in August that it would allot 100 million shekels ($246 million) to cover health care and some social-welfare expenses for 83,000 Ukrainian refugees until the end of 2023, the Israeli news outlet Ynet reported.

But the new war may divert funds and attention.

“In some small towns, refugees can be left with nothing” said Tetyana Mykhaylenko, one of 15 coordinators at the center. “Now all efforts [are for] money for the army and for people from the south [of Israel] who also lost everything.”

Ukrainian refugees began to arrive at the Refugee Assistance Center, Mykhaylenko said, within a few days of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Mykhaylenko, a native of Kharkiv who emigrated to Israel in 2019, believes, however, that not all of the Ukrainian refugees who frequent the center plan to leave Israel.

“We understand that the war [in Ukraine] will end, but we do not know which of them will go back there,” she said. “There are people who have nowhere to return to [in Ukraine], so we want them to have a place to come to.”

Housed in a two-story building that provides food vouchers, clothes, and various classes, the center, which cooperates with the Ukrainian Embassy, tries to ensure that “people do not get lost” in adapting to Israel.

“We don’t want it to be at the level of handing out bread and clothes,” Mykhaylenko said.

Over 70 volunteers pack food donations, such as candy and vegetables, while another 20 volunteers make deliveries to families or transport the elderly to doctors’ offices. Hebrew-speaking volunteers help with translations and assist with searches for work and housing. Lawyers provide free consultations.

For the roughly 260 Ukrainians in Gaza, which has been devastated by persistent Israeli air raids and faces inadequate supplies of food, water, and medicine, adjustments may be more difficult.

One Ukrainian man has died in Gaza as a result of the fighting and at least one other has been injured, according to the Ukrainian Embassy in Israel.

Most of the Ukrainians in Gaza are women who have married Palestinian men, lived there for years, and have children who can potentially evacuate with them, said Ukrainian Ambassador to Egypt Mykola Nahorniy.

Given the relatively low standard of living in Gaza, Ukraine itself “probably” will finance charter flights to take Gaza evacuees from Egypt to a country bordering Ukraine — Moldova, Romania, or Poland, the ambassador said. It also would pay part of the cost of transporting these evacuees through Egypt to their flights, he said.

But, though the border between Egypt and southern Gaza opened on October 21 to admit 20 trucks with humanitarian aid, it remains closed to foreign nationals and other individuals hoping to evacuate from the Palestinian territory.

As of October 24, no evacuation flights from Egypt had been announced.

Written by Elizabeth Owen based on reporting by Maryana Sych, Maria Horban, Anna Tokhmakhchi, Kateryna Nekrecha, and Iryna Ostrovska of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service