The first flight bringing Israelis stranded abroad back to Israel landed Wednesday morning, five days after Israel Air Force strikes against Iran early on Friday led to a significant Iranian response and the closing of Israel’s airspace.
The El Al flight from Larnaca landed and was greeted by Transportation Minister Miri Regev.
The flight was part of Operation Safe Return, launched to bring home between 100,000 and 150,000 Israelis stuck abroad.
Additional flights ferrying stranded Israelis home landed over the course of the day, with Ynet reporting that 19 additional flights were expected to land on Wednesday. Some 2,000 people were scheduled to land in Israel on Wednesday, Regev said on Tuesday.
According to the transportation minister, private airlines and the Israeli Mano Maritime shipping company will also be mobilized to bring Israelis stranded across the globe home by air or by sea.
Regev noted earlier this week that “we will do everything to bring Israelis home” but stressed that “it will take time; it will not happen overnight.” She also told Israelis stuck abroad that they “have nothing to worry about; you are abroad, enjoy.”
Israelis return home to their lives
In a message to Regev, National Unity chair MK Benny Gantz said on X/Twitter, “A woman who is elderly and waiting for surgery. A young woman whose husband fell in the war traveled for a few days and left behind a 4-year-old child in the country. These are just two cases out of thousands of stories of people who need to return home. Your role and the government’s role is not to tell them what to do but to bring them home safely.”
Regev and the government’s leadership have been criticized over the past few days for what some have perceived as a lack of preparedness to care for the home front during an escalation with Iran. This has included criticism of what seemed to be a lack of a clear plan to bring between 100,000 and 150,000 Israelis stuck abroad back to Israel.
In an interview with Channel 12 on Tuesday, Regev countered this criticism, sarcastically asking her interviewers if they would have wanted her to tell Israelis not to fly because there was about to be a military operation.
In response, she was asked if there was not some other way her ministry could have been prepared to bring people home.