Some 200 Ukrainians to be able to leave Israel on Sat night – ambassador
Some 200 Ukrainians will be able to leave Israel for Romania on Saturday night, Ambassador of Ukraine to Israel Yevhen Korniychuk has said.
"The evacuation of our citizens is held in the following way: Ben Gurion Airport is operating in normal mode. Around 1,000 citizens filled in a questionnaire on the website to confirm that they are ready to pay for the tickets… The first evacuation flight, i.e. the first 200 people whose tickets have been validated, will go to Romania, Bucharest, on Saturday night," he said on the air of the national telethon on Thursday.
The diplomat also said the next evacuation flight from Israel will also depart for Romania and is scheduled for Sunday night.
According to the ambassador, the main problem of the evacuation from Israel is that many foreign airlines cancelled their flights and the cost of tickets to Europe increased to $1,000. Korniychuk also emphasized that consuls work around-the-clock in Israel and, in first turn, they help those who call to Ukrainian phone numbers since these are people who did not live in Israel permanently.
The ambassador also said that next evacuation flights will depend on the demand for them.
At the same time, evacuation of Ukrainians from the Gaza Strip never started due to the fact that the only checkpoint was closed.
"Unfortunately, evacuation did not start since the only checkpoint Rafah remains closed and we just as well as the other embassies are unable to influence this. This means that none of the European embassies and that of the USA did not evacuate none of their citizens [from the Gaza Strip]," the diplomat said.
According to him, the number of people who agreed for evacuation from the Gaza Strip has been increasing every hour. As of Thursday morning, 250 people wanted to leave it.
Korniychuk stressed that as soon as any of the checkpoints in the Gaza Strip is open, evacuation will start.