Six days after Hamas attacked Israel, Brigham Young University is evacuating its Jerusalem Center.
According to the university, 93 students, faculty members and their families, and service couples are “currently relocating to Greece.” BYU has reported no violence at or near its the eight-tiered, 125,000-square-foot building, but Americans are being evacuated from Israel. The Biden administration has announced it is chartering flights to Europe and that Americans can make their way home from there.
BYU released no details about its plans once it students and faculties reach Greece.
The center is located on Mount Scopus, overlooking the Mount of Olives, the Kidron Valley and the Old City of Jerusalem. It’s BYU’s “home base for study in the Holy Land,” according to the center’s website. BYU is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; the church’s governing First Presidency issued a news release Thursday that the faith’s leaders are “devastated by the recent eruption of violence and loss of life in the Middle East.”
(BYU had previously reported there were 94 students at its Jerusalem Center, but one fractured her foot and returned to her home before the fighting began Saturday.)
The death toll in Israel has risen to more than 1,300, as of Friday morning, and about 1,800 have died in Gaza. At least 27 Americans have been killed — including Utahn Lotan Abir, 24, who died when Hamas attacked a rave he was attending in southern Israel with a few other members of Utah’s Jewish community.
