Israel has brought about 3,500 of its citizens home on repatriation flights on its first day of partially reopening the country’s airspace amid the war with Iran.

In addition, preparations are underway to resume outbound flights from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport in a limited format starting on Sunday, to help some 28,000 tourists stuck in the country return and allow Israelis in need to travel outside the country.

On Thursday, a total of 20 flights by Israeli airlines El Al, Arkia, and Israir flew about 3,500 passengers from various mostly European cities, including Athens, Rome, Larnaca, Munich, London, Batumi, and Zurich, to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, as one plane an hour was permitted to land.

At times, landing had to be delayed amid Iranian missile attacks that targeted central Israel.

“We were in Madrid looking for ways to return to Israel and decided to travel to Rome and from there we got on a flight to Tel Aviv,” said Sapir from Herzliya, who did not give her last name, upon arrival at the airport. “We were supposed to fly back on Tuesday, so altogether it was a trip of 24 hours -it was fun but also scary.”

The wartime repatriation wasn’t entirely smooth. An El Al flight from Tbilisi was forced to abort landing Thursday morning just before touchdown at Ben Gurion Airport, and lift back up due to a rocket and missile attack alert from Iran. After about 20 minutes of circling in the air, the plane landed safely at Ben Gurion, a passenger told Israel’s Channel 12.

Since the country’s main gateway was shut on Saturday following the joint US-Israel attack on Iran, more than 20,000 Israelis stranded abroad have returned home in recent days via land border........

© The Times of Israel