Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett yesterday called on Israelis not to leave Israel, “which is going through its most difficult times since 1948”.

“We are in the most difficult period since the War of Independence: Change in the war, international boycotts, damage to deterrence, 120 Israelis in captivity, thousands of bereaved families, a deserted Galilee, thousands of evacuees, ministers who only care about themselves, loss of control over the economy and the deficit,” he wrote in a post on X after saying that he was “very sad” to hear a software engineer he knew was moving to Europe.

While there is no official data on the number of Israelis who have left since the beginning of the war on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, the Hebrew news website the Times of Israel said on Sunday that more than half a million Israelis left and did not return in the first six months of the war.