U.S. Army and Navy veteran Bryan Stern formed Project Dynamo, a donor-funded rescue operation during the botched American withdrawal from Afghanistan two years ago. “We are completely saturated with requests” and are “fielding hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of requests from Americans who are stuck” as a result from the Hamas attacks on Israel.
Stern’s efforts to recover the Americans has been dubbed Operation: Promised Land. Stern is disappointed with the Biden administration, which he believes should be taking the lead on getting Americans out of harm’s way. “Project Dynamo shouldn’t be rescuing any American in any warzone, ever,” he said. But over the last few years, after engaging in rescue operations around the globe, including in Ukraine and in Sudan, Stern said, “We’ve learned that’s just not the case. It’s just not. That’s why we’re here.”
Stern said there are basically three “tranches” of Americans his team is looking at: hostages held by Hamas terrorists, which are the “most severe and hardest” cases; Americans trapped inside the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, Palestinian-controlled territories; and Americans stuck in Israel between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, which will likely be the easier cases.
The Americans stuck between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are in the least danger. “Many of them are just scared and can’t get out of here. It’s a lot of fear,” Stern said.
Americans stranded inside the Palestinian territories — many of them humanitarian workers — are hiding, he said. “There’s one family that we’re working with where the father does stuff with water purification, and the wife is a teacher,” he said. People can request an evacuation from Israel at the Project Dynamo website, where they can also donate to the group. Stern called donor funding the “fuel of our operations.”
“The first rule of hostage negotiations is to take what you can when you can, which is a nice way of saying, easier is good. A life is a life is a life,” Stern said. “So, if it takes five hours to rescue 100 people or 20 hours to rescue one person, as a donor-funded nonprofit, and we’re small, I’d rather do more people.”
“That said, our specialty is hard cases in hard places,” he added.
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Stern said that, ideally, they’ll be able to fly the people they rescue out of Israel. The group has planes at its disposal if it can get the funding to pay for them — they believe they need to pay for at least three flights. They may also pull people out by boat or over the Jordan border.
“The catch is, the Jordanians are more or less allies of the United States,” he said, “but generally speaking don’t like Israel and generally speaking don’t like Jewish people.”
Stern said it is “naïve” to think that Hamas will keep those hostages in Gaza; they’ll likely be moved into Egypt or Lebanon, he said. While Hamas has threatened to kill hostages, Stern said they are valuable to the terrorists, noting the $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue the U.S. unfroze last month in exchange for Iran releasing five American prisoners.
“Let’s not forget, we just set the market rate for Americans to Iran, $1 billion a head,” Stern said. “And these are the same bad guys.”
Since its founding in 2021, Project Dynamo rescuers have operated in Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Sudan. They’ve also rescued Americans who were trapped after wildfires ravaged Maui, Hawaii, earlier this year, and after Hurricane Ian enveloped Florida’s southwest coast last year.
