2023-10-10 22:00:38
Lufthansa will bring German nationals stranded in Israel home with special flights on Thursday and Friday. The airline was operating several special flights “at the request of the Foreign Office,” the Foreign Office said on Tuesday evening. Lufthansa had actually suspended its flights to Israel up to and including Saturday because of the war in the Middle East. There should be four flights per day. The crisis reaction center of the German Foreign Ministry had previously negotiated under high pressure with airlines to expand flight capacities.
Around 900 people have been killed in Israel since Saturday in a large-scale terrorist attack by the Islamist Hamas on Israel. In addition, more than 2,800 people in Israel were injured. Hamas members also kidnapped around 150 people in the Gaza Strip. Since then, numerous German citizens have been waiting to leave the country. Around 4,500 German citizens have currently registered on the Federal Foreign Office’s crisis preparedness list.
The Foreign Office said in the evening that the final technical details were being clarified at the moment. The Foreign Minister in Berlin wants to inform German citizens registered in the “Elefand” crisis preparedness list this Wednesday about how tickets for the special flights with Lufthansa can be booked. German citizens who are not yet registered and want to leave the country should immediately add themselves to the list, it said. The evacuation flights were agreed in the evening by Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) and Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr.
Foreign Office: Final details are being clarified
With the recording in the “Elefand” system, Germans abroad can be quickly informed by German representations in acute crisis cases and included in possible crisis measures.
Baerbock had previously asked Germans who were waiting to leave Israel to understand on ZDF. “We have launched evacuation flights with other airlines. We arranged flight connections through the crisis hotline – those who were at the airport could contact us. You then had to change trains on some routes. I understand that this is a terrible situation, but when you have 100,000 calls at the same time, you have to prioritize.”
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Before a meeting of CDU/CSU MPs in Berlin, Union parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz (CDU) demanded that the federal government must make it possible “for German nationals who want to leave the country, for example school classes, youth groups and others who are still in “Israel is now planning to fly back to Germany.” CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt demanded that if a return flight with scheduled aircraft was not possible, the federal government must make government aircraft available for this purpose.
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