Eilat airport closes due to flooding

Two flights diverted back to Tel Aviv; road connecting the southern city to the rest of Israel temporarily closes due to heavy rain

Yifa Yaakov is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.

As Israel prepared for a stormy, wintry weekend, the airport in Eilat, the country’s usually sunny southernmost city, was closed Friday afternoon due to heavy rains which caused flooding on its landing strips. As a result, two flights from Eilat to Tel Aviv were delayed.

Earlier in the day, two flights from Tel Aviv to Eilat, a popular vacation spot for both locals and tourists due to its usually sunny climate and seafront location, were diverted back to Tel Aviv’s Sde Dov airport. A third flight was diverted to the nearby Ovda Air Force base.

The airport was scheduled to reopen on Saturday afternoon.

Meanwhile on Friday, the road connecting Eilat to the rest of Israel became so flooded that it had to be closed to incoming traffic. It was later reopened, with police directing traffic on the slippery road.

Rainy weather was also reported elsewhere in Israel, with Haifa boasting the highest quantity of rain measured. A woman in her twenties was lightly injured in Haifa when a tree fell on her car while she was driving, shattering her windshield.

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