Homeless women found living at Ben Gurion Airport

At least three homeless women were found to be living at Ben-Gurion Airport recently, with staff’s full knowledge and often with their help.

According to a Channel 2 report on Sunday, the women eat, shower and sleep at the arrivals terminal at the airport. One of the woman landed in Israel a short time ago and has never left the airport.

The employees at the terminal are aware of them and some help them with food and other necessities, according to the report.

“I’m going to a [homeless] shelter,” said one of the homeless women in English, pushing a trolley with luggage and looking like a traveler.

Identified as Yelena, she then switched to Russian, telling Channel 2 that she used to live at a shelter close to the Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv and then came to the airport where she has been living off and on for the past six months.

Another lady, unnamed, said she had been living in the terminal for two months.

Also speaking in Russian, she told Channel 2 that she wanders the terminal during the day, pushing her trolley, and she gets help acquiring food from people working there.

Both women appear to be elderly and an on-site social worker has been trying to assist them, according to the report.

The manager, Ori Dikovksy, told the TV channel that besides the two Russian-speaking women, there are sometimes foreigners who “get stuck” at the airport for lack of funds, a problem with their ticket or other such reasons.

“There is someone like that here now, who claims that she was misled as to the time of her flight, so she missed it,” said Dikovsky.

The women, named Larissa, said she has been at the airport for four days.

All the women in the report had their faces blurred to avoid identification.

According to Channel 2, security personnel have no orders or interest to evict the women so long as they don’t pose a threat to public order or become a nuisance.

“I think this happens everywhere in the world,” said Dikovsky, making a reference to the famous 2004 movie “Terminal” starring Tom Hanks, about a man who becomes trapped at New York’s JFK airport when his home country collapses into revolution.

The film was in turn inspired by the case of Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian who spent 18 years stranded at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport.

Dikovsky said living at the airport can be quite comfortable, as least as a temporary solution.

“First, you can really get lost here,” said Dikovsky.

“Second, you see other people; it’s interesting. Third, the weather is comfortable, there’s always air-conditioning, so they feel at home,” he added.