In a week that has seen precious little normal activity in Israel, at least one aspect of regular civilian life will begin to return.
Israel’s national airline, El Al, resumed repatriation flights on Thursday morning after nearly a week with no flights since the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran began last weekend. Air traffic and other aspects of civilian travel and commerce have been tightly restricted or scaled back in several countries in the region, as Iran lashed out at Israel and its other neighbors, with waves of drone and missile attacks that hit residential neighborhoods and apartment buildings throughout the Middle East.
While Israel has begun the process of bringing home citizens who were stranded abroad at the outset of hostilities, Transportation Minister Miri Regev announced that the country is taking the equally important step of planning for the resumption of outbound flights this Sunday.
“After assessing the situation, we have made the decision to open the skies starting Sunday for outbound flights, subject to security developments,” the minister said via the Times of Israel. “We will update throughout the day.”
According to the plan, outbound flights will be limited to one plane per hour, with no more than 50 passengers per flight. In addition, passengers will be allowed to carry only hand luggage.
While the Transportation Ministry remains cautious in its approach to resuming normal air activity, the fact that repatriation and outbound flights are resuming at all may indicate the progress of the war to date.
Though Iran’s stockpiles of ballistic and anti-aircraft missiles and launchers were greatly depleted during the 12-day War in June of last year, a sufficient number of such missiles and launcher systems remained to make their targeting a priority during the opening phase of the most recent US-Israeli strikes.
It’s unlikely Israeli officials would contemplate even limited civilian air traffic unless military strikes on Iran were achieving their desired effects.
Officials plan to increase flight frequency, passenger capacity, and the types of luggage that can be carried as the security situation improves.
