Civil aviation chief: It will take weeks to bring home all Israelis stranded abroad

Shmuel Zakai, the head of the Civil Aviation Authority, says it will take weeks before all Israelis stranded abroad will be able to fly home, as Israel’s airspace remains closed amid strikes on Iran.

He says Israeli airlines moved their entire flights out of Israel at the very start of the war, in a complex operation that the CAA had planned well in advance, and that the planes are located at airports as close as possible to where Israelis are right now.

But flights cannot be resumed until the security establishment assessment allows, says Zakai.

“We won’t restart airport operations at a full pace, it will be slow, in stages, and it may cease for certain periods. The first goal is to prevent harm to people and planes,” he says.

“I want to say to Israelis abroad: It will take weeks — not days or hours — weeks until many of them are back home.”

Asked if he really means weeks, he says Israel is in the midst of “a historic event, a war,” and that “we shouldn’t create illusions.”

Zakai says this scenario was known to key people ahead of the war, but indicates that Israel could not tell its citizens not to fly overseas because a preemptive war was imminent, and they might get stuck there.

Some 50,000 Israelis are believed to be stuck overseas, and the IDF’s spokesman said earlier today that it was constantly assessing the situation.

In some past conflicts, Israelis have been advised to get to Larnaca or Athens, where Israeli flights would fetch them as soon as possible, but no such official advice has been issued this time.