By Robert Becker
Lufthansa will operate several special flights to evacuate Germans from Israel this Thursday and Friday.
This was announced by the Foreign Office on Tuesday evening. There should be four flights per day.
The Foreign Office said in the evening that the final technical details were being clarified at the moment. The Foreign Ministry wants to inform German citizens registered in the “Elefand” crisis preparedness list this Wednesday about how tickets for the special flights with Lufthansa can be booked.
German citizens who are not yet registered and want to leave the country should immediately add themselves to the list, it said.
With the recording in the “Elefand” system, Germans abroad can be quickly informed by German representations in acute crisis cases and included in possible crisis measures.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock had previously asked Germans who were waiting to leave Israel to understand. There is a big rush.
Baerbock: “We have launched evacuation flights with other airlines. We arranged flight connections through the crisis hotline – those who were at the airport could contact us. You then had to change trains on some routes. I understand that this is a terrible situation, but when you have 100,000 calls at the same time, then you have to prioritize,” said the Green politician on ZDF on Tuesday evening.
The Federal Foreign Ministry and the German embassy in Tel Aviv are “in close contact with the Israeli authorities and with the German nationals in Israel,” it said in Berlin. Around 4,500 German citizens are currently registered on the Federal Foreign Office’s crisis preparedness list.
According to information from ZDF, Hamas terrorists kidnapped at least five Germans during the attack on Israel. As the station reported on Tuesday, a German was killed. There was no confirmation of this information from the Foreign Office in Berlin. The Federal Prosecutor General began investigating Hamas because of kidnappings and suspected killings of Germans.
Other EU countries are also starting evacuation flights
Other European countries are also bringing their compatriots from Israel home in view of the fighting.
► The Lufthansa subsidiary Swiss explained that after the first special flight on Tuesday, it was planning another one on Wednesday.
The 215 available seats on the plane can be booked via a special hotline. According to the government in Bern, around 28,000 Swiss are in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
► Austria is also preparing to evacuate its citizens from Israel on Wednesday and is using a military transport aircraft for this purpose.
Around 200 Austrians have so far informed the authorities that they want to leave the country.
► Hungary, Portugal and Iceland are also already organizing evacuation flights.