Their bags were packed, they were ready to go. Then a missile fired from Yemen struck inside the grounds of Ben Gurion Airport, and their jet plane wasn’t going anywhere. 

The Houthi attack on Sunday morning prompted international carriers from around the world to cancel their service to and from Israel, including Ethiopian Airlines, which was meant to fly five young children and their mothers from Zanzibar to Israel for lifesaving heart surgery through the Save a Child’s Heart nonprofit.

For 24 hours, the children and their mothers were stranded in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as the organization scrambled to find an alternative, either through Europe or Dubai, while the group, which was accompanied by a nurse from Zanzibar, stayed in a local hotel.

“Ethiopian Airlines has been one of the airlines [that] continued to fly throughout this time,” noted Simon Fisher, executive director of Save a Child’s Heart.

It was an on-again-off-again situation and looking increasingly dire on Tuesday evening, until suddenly there was an “last-minute twist,” Fisher told eJewishPhilanthropy.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar happened to be in Ethiopia on an official visit meeting with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Foreign Minister Gedion Timotheos. The group from Zanzibar was able to get on Saar’s flight home.

“There was a lot of last-minute pressure combined with [help] from Ethiopian Airlines, and they managed to get the children on. We are very happy because we very worried and anxious about what was going to happen. We are very appreciative to Ethiopian Airlines and the foreign office for their efforts,” said Fisher, who found out about the happy ending when one of the group sent him a photo of the children on the plane over WhatsApp. “Against all odds, Save a Child’s Heart continues to save lives. With war here in Israel, with Houthis there, children are children.”

The children and their escorts arrived in Israel on Tuesday night and were met at the airport by the Honorary Consul of Tanzania and Zanzibar to Israel, Chirich Nuriel Kasbian. Israel’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment about the flight.

Save a Child’s Heart has already treated 1,000 children from Zanzibar at the Wolfson Medical Center outside of Tel Aviv, Fisher said, and his group signed a memorandum of understanding with the Zanzibar Ministry of Health last week to continue the cooperation. There are currently 30 children from Africa at Wolfson Medical Center after heart surgery who are “anxious and ready to go home,” Fisher said.

Fisher is part of a delegation from Save a Child’s Heart who are scheduled to go to Malawi next week to screen some 100 patients and give training to local cardiologists, he said. Hopefully, he said, flights will have resumed by then.