Israel’s main international airport is scheduled to reopen on Wednesday night with limited operations amid the war with Iran, Israeli Transportation Minister Miri Regev said on Tuesday.
Ben-Gurion International Airport was shuttered following Saturday’s joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran.
The initial flights are expected to be operated only by Israeli carriers, to start bringing home tens of thousands of Israelis stranded abroad by the war.
“Our mission is to bring back Israelis safely,” Regev said at a press conference.
In the first stage, the flights will not take any passengers from Israel due to restrictions still in place, a Transportation Ministry spokeswoman said.
Israeli flag carrier EL AL said Tuesday it has started to assign ticket holders stranded abroad to repatriation flights from 22 destinations back to Israel. The placement will be carried out by the airline based on the date of customers’ original flight tickets.
Israeli carriers Israir and Arkia also said they were working to start such flights.
An estimated 100,000 Israelis were abroad, while some 33,000 foreign tourists were in Israel.
Aviation officials estimate it will take seven to 10 days to bring the Israelis abroad back home.
Land crossings as option B
Thousands of Israelis abroad, as well as tourists in Israel, have chosen to travel via land border crossing through Egypt to get home, with smaller carriers led by Arkia, and two foreign airlines to and from Europe, through Taba.
“For over 72 hours, we have been simultaneously calming our stranded clientele or arranging for them to fly from Taba to Athens and vice versa,” Mark Feldman, CEO of Jerusalem’s Ziontours, told JNS.
He noted that the airport will not be fully operational until the end of the war and that the flights starting Wednesday night will be repatriation flights alone.
“At this time, public gatherings remain off limits, so all talk of the airport [completely] reopening is based more on desire than facts,” he said.
In the meantime, travel disruptions continued throughout the region on Tuesday after multiple countries closed their airspace to civilian traffic following the outbreak of hostilities last weekend.
