US visitors to Israel rose 73% in June, 15% in July

US airline service to Israel not expected to resume before fall

Israel’s Ministry of Tourism released the latest figures as cautious American visitors began returning to the country following wars in Gaza and with Iran that have damaged the tourism economy. The June arrival figure of 32,500 marked a 73 percent increase over June 2025, when Israel’s skies were closed for almost two weeks of fighting with Iran. Another 36,600 Americans arrived in July, up 15 percent from a year earlier and accounting for roughly a third of all foreign visitors to Israel that month, according to the ministry and the Central Bureau of Statistics.

The American return comes against a financial backdrop of declining foreign visitor spending. Yaron Ergas, the director of research and statistics at the Ministry of Tourism, said foreign visitors spent about $700 million in the first half of 2026. If that pace continues, the year will fall far short of the $3 billion recorded in 2025. Excluding the pandemic years, total visitor numbers are on track for the lowest in half a century, according to the ministry.

Historically, Americans have made up the largest bloc of foreign tourists, at roughly a quarter of the total in normal years and rising to more than a third since 2020. This summer, Americans accounted for roughly a third of all foreign visitors to Israel in July. American-accented English is heard more often in Tel Aviv and around Jerusalem as visitors from the U.S. make good on long-delayed plans to visit family and friends.

The recovery’s main constraint is air access. Michael Izhakov, director general of Israel’s Ministry of Tourism, said more Americans would travel if more flights were available. U.S. carriers aren’t scheduled to resume services to Israel until the fall at the earliest, leaving travelers to route through Europe on foreign airlines, often at higher cost and with less convenient schedules. “It’s all about the flights. Without flights, there’s no way to come,” Izhakov said.

The flight gap is shaping which trips happen. Ilana Butrimovitz, a tour guide from Haifa, said her summer calendar is full of organized group travel. “My entire summer is booked with American teen and Birthright groups,” she said, referring to the program that brings young Jewish adults to Israel. Private tour operators describe a more uneven picture. Jeremy Collins, who runs his own guiding business, said most of his summer bookings were canceled when the war with Iran began, with only two families keeping their plans. “It’s better compared to last summer, but that’s going from 0% to 20% of how work should be,” he said. Zakariah Mashriqi, who runs a family-owned antiquities shop in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, said business had been declining since the pandemic. “It picked up after Covid, but October 7 brought it down again,” he said.

Travelers described the workarounds. Jon Rapp, a clinical social worker from Pierre, South Dakota, said it took 29 hours to reach Tel Aviv for his son’s wedding, and that his son’s stepmother and two half-siblings had to remain behind after their United Airlines tickets were canceled. Rabbi Josh Ross, executive director of the Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus, said participation in his organization’s summer programs was down slightly, not because of the war, but because of airfare costs and a weaker shekel-to-dollar exchange rate. “We might be down a few spots this year, but that’s not about the war. It’s about airfare costs and where the shekel-to-dollar exchange rate stands right now, which makes the summer pricier for families,” he said.

Several travelers said they had committed to their trips well in advance or waited to see how the security situation evolved. Elan Weinstock, a software engineer from New Haven, Connecticut, said he bought tickets more than six months ago using airline points. “I probably wouldn’t have bought the tickets a month ago, but since we already had them, I figured let’s roll with it,” he said. Elisa Schweizer, who regularly brings her children to Israel from San Jose, California, said her family met her Israeli husband’s relatives in Greece last summer as Iranian ballistic missiles flew. This year, “when everything seemed safe-ish, we bought a ticket,” she said. Schweizer said she saw encouraging signs during her trip, including a nearly sold-out Tel Aviv show for Israeli pop star Omer Adam and a 4×4 tour her family took at a northern kibbutz that had recently reopened after two years. Some of the busier sites, such as Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, are mostly visited by pilgrims from Russia, she said.

Craig and Jamie Aframe came from Boston with their two teenage sons for a joint bar mitzvah trip that had been postponed twice. They arrived shortly before renewed hostilities between the United States and Iran flared in the Strait of Hormuz. “I figured we better come now, because you just don’t know,” Jaime Aframe said. Most visitors the couple met said they didn’t feel less safe over the slow-burn conflict in the Persian Gulf. “I didn’t even know it had started back up,” Jaime Aframe said. Walking through galleries in the northern Israeli city of Safed, Weinstock said he was similarly unbothered. “I’m zen about it. If I hear a siren, that might change my zen state, but for right now I don’t feel any different,” he said. Shop owners in Safed told him they had closed for years and reopened with the hope tourists would return, only to find “a ghost town,” he said.

US Ambassador Mike Huckabee met with Israeli tourism industry leaders earlier this month to discuss how to encourage more American travel. Rapp, who said he remembered scenes from the Second Intifada including the 2001 Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem, said: “If you don’t come because you’re worried about a security situation in Israel, you don’t come to Israel.”