How Two Israeli Women Smuggled 167 Afghan Women Out of the Taliban’s Grip

Journalist Danna Harman interviewed many Afghan women during the 20 years of American presence in the country. In 2021, when the Taliban returned to power, those women reached out to her, fearing for their lives. The result was two harrowing rescue missions, documented in the film “Daytrip: Escaping the Taliban,” broadcast on KAN 11.

“Everything that could go wrong did go wrong,” says director Roni Aboulafia.

Published by Ruta Kupfer on Calcalist | December 19, 2025

 

“Everything that could go wrong did go wrong,” says Roni Aboulafia, director of the documentary Daytrip: Escaping the Taliban, broadcast on KAN 11, which tells the story of how she and journalist Danna Harman rescued dozens of women who were being hunted by the Taliban.

“At a certain point the Taliban intercepted the groups. We had to bribe them. They beat the men. The women had no passports. Every possible nightmare,” she says.

The film begins in August 2021, with the withdrawal of the United States and international forces from Afghanistan, followed by the Taliban’s rapid takeover of the country. Media outlets were flooded with images of crowds storming evacuation planes – Afghans who had worked with the Americans, and many others, especially women, who feared the return of brutal Sharia law.

“They tried to kill many women, and they did,” Harman says.

Harman (53), an Israeli-American journalist who had visited Afghanistan many times during the years of American presence, began receiving hundreds of messages from Afghan women she had previously written about. She decided to mobilize a group of friends, activists, and one Jewish billionaire, Sylvan Adams, to carry out two rescue missions depicted in the film: one including 42 women, the other 125.

The film focuses primarily on the stories of Hanna, the first female judge in her district, who fled to Kabul; Gul, born in one of Afghanistan’s most remote provinces, the first girl from her region to attend school and later the first in the country to graduate from the police academy; Shakiba Teimori, a young singer who rose to fame on the Afghan version of Rising Star; Fatima, a champion equestrian trapped in her home; and the girls from the national robotics team.

“My correspondence began with the girls from the robotics team, whom I had previously written about for The New York Times,” Harman says. “They reached out to every foreigner they knew. When I asked what I could do for them, they said, ‘Help us fly out of here.’ I started calling everyone I knew, and Roni, who always rises to a challenge. immediately said, ‘I’m in.'”

“And I brought a camera with me,” adds Aboulafia (53), winner of the Israeli Television Academy Award for her series School of Hope, and current chair of the Israeli Documentary Forum. This is how the inspirational film came to be (produced by Paramount’s Ananey Studios).

“Day Trip, a one-day trip, was the name Danna gave the WhatsApp group she opened with the women, to conceal its real purpose.”

 

Sylvan Adams Financed the Move to Canada

The rescue mission was extraordinarily complex, in part because the women were hiding in safe houses, each in a different location.

“They sent us their locations via Google Maps, because the Wi-Fi still worked,” Aboulafia says. “The Americans didn’t do much good in Afghanistan, but one good thing they did was connect the country to the internet.”

The next challenge was figuring out how to get the women out of the country.

“The Americans announced that the airport would remain open until August 31, and anyone who made it there would be able to board a plane,” Harman says. “I was trying to figure out how to get women into an airport packed with tens of thousands of people fleeing.”

Eventually, the decision was made to transport the women by bus across the border into neighboring Tajikistan, where an Israeli rescue team was waiting. Another major challenge was determining where the refugees would ultimately be sent.

“We thought Canada would be the best final destination,” Harman says. “They went through training there, met rapper will.i.am. I contacted his office, schools with robotics programs that could take them in. Canada is good at absorbing refugees.”

To make this happen, they opened another WhatsApp group and brought in Yotam Polizer, CEO of IsraAID, a humanitarian aid organization Aboulafia knew through her mother, who chairs the organization. They also added Charlene Seidle, a nonprofit professional based in California, and two Canadian lawyers.

Aboulafia adds, “Sylvan Adams financed the entire move, and because he is Canadian, he had excellent connections there.”

 

Did you consider bringing them to Israel?

“The Tajiks gave them three-day transit visas and basically said, ‘Get them out of here,'” Aboulafia recounts. “The easiest and most logical solution was to bring them to Israel. We approached the office of then Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and the office of then Foreign Minister Yair Lapid. Both were receptive but said we needed approval from Ayelet Shaked, who was Interior Minister at the time. She said no, absolutely not. It broke my heart.

“During the operation we made thousands of phone calls. We asked Israelis for help, and everyone wanted to help. Israir even agreed to provide a plane. Everyone, except Ayelet Shaked. That was deeply disappointing.”

 

“It Didn’t Matter to Them That We Were Israeli”

Making a film about the rescue operation was not a given.

“I struggled with it at first,” Harman says. “While we were trying to save women’s lives, Roni would say things like, ‘If you manage to film something from your home, we’d appreciate it.’ I was afraid it would turn us into ‘white saviors,’ which couldn’t be further from the truth. I was also worried it would come out sentimental. And who even knew how the mission would end?”

“Honestly, I didn’t think about the film at all,” Aboulafia says. “When we landed in Tajikistan, I filmed, but then there was so much work to do that we didn’t always have time. The women, who had been hiding for weeks in Kabul, collapsed and became ill the moment they crossed into Tajikistan. They had nothing, just a small bag, so no one would suspect they were fleeing.”

Because of this, many dramatic moments were never filmed.

“For example, when they crossed to the other side of the border, they threw their burqas into the trash,” she says. “I didn’t film that. But I took one burqa with me. Because I wasn’t constantly filming, the movie unfolds in fragments. That was the only concept that allowed us to tell the story. We never sat down and said, ‘Now we’re making a film, let’s raise money, hire a cinematographer, record sound, and define the protagonists.'”