by Valentina Voikova and Ioannis Karagiorgas
It’s published •update
Israel began flying citizens who were stranded abroad during a conflict with Iran on two flights that saw Cyprus land in Tel Aviv on Wednesday morning.
Israeli airspace has been closed since launching a surprising airstrike campaign against Iran on Friday. Iran retaliated with hundreds of drones and missiles.
A total of 13 repatriation flights were scheduled for Wednesday from Larnaca to Israel, with nine to Haifa and four to Tel Aviv.
Israeli Ministry of Transport says up to 150,000 Israelis are currently out of the country, with about a third of them trying to get home.
Many Israelis stuck abroad have ended up in Cyprus, the EU country closest to Israel. The jets from three Israeli airlines have been moved to Larnaca since the conflict with Iran began last week.
The conflict forced most countries in the Middle East to close their airspace. Dozens of airports have stopped all flights or cut operations significantly, tens of thousands of passengers are stuck, and other passengers are unable to escape or return home from the conflict.
Stuck in Bulgaria
At least 400 Israelis have been reported to be stuck along Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast.
Garid, one of those tourists, told EuroNews he didn’t know when she and her family could return to Israel.
“We can’t go back now. We can’t. We have to be here with our kids and wait. We can’t do anything now. That’s it. It’s war,” Garid said.
Two other tourists, Eden and Itai, said they had eliminated the possibility that they could fly to Jordan or Egypt and enter Israel from the border of the land as they had young children.
The hotel where stuck Israelis stay in Bulgaria has recently been placed under an increase in police presence and security measures.
Israeli national airline El Al says it intends to operate dozens of flights to repatriate Israelis from various European capitals, such as Athens, Rome and Paris. Small carrier Alchia fly Israeli citizens from Greece, Cyprus and Montenegro, while Islea operates flights for tourists stuck from Cyprus, Greece and Bulgaria.
However, passenger flights have not yet departed from Israel. In other words, tens of thousands of tourists are now marginalized in the country.
Israeli airstrikes struck Tehran, the capital of Iran, overnight on Wednesday morning.
The bitter attacks between rivals opened a new chapter in their upheaval recent history. Many in the region fear wider conflict when they see waves of missiles flying around the sky every night.
A human rights activist, a Washington-based Iranian human rights group, says Israel’s strike against Iran has killed more than 1,300 people and injured more than 1,300 people.
Iran has fired around 400 missiles and hundreds of drones in a retaliatory strike that killed at least 24 people in Israel since Friday, and injured all civilians and hundreds of people, Israeli authorities said.
Additional sources •AP
