Tourists in Israel will be brought back as quickly as possible. Poland and Bulgaria have already evacuated their citizens. The Netherlands is looking at the situation minute by minute.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs set the travel advice for Israel to orange on Saturday, which means: only travel to Israel if it is necessary. The border areas near Gaza, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt are red, the advice is to stay away from them.
It is unknown how many Dutch people are currently in Israel or Gaza. Dutch tourists who are in Israel through travel organizations affiliated with the ANVR are currently not in the danger zone. Contact has been made with all these groups of travelers, a spokeswoman for the trade organization said.
Barely
Travel organization TUI managed to stop 32 Dutch people who were supposed to leave in the afternoon on Saturday. “We now have four travelers in Tel Aviv. We are in contact and they are fine. They will return as soon as possible,” says Petra Kok of TUI. It is unknown when they can return.
At the time of Hamas’ attack on Israel, several hundred Dutch people were traveling through the country. The responsible travel organizations are now assessing whether these tourists should end their holiday earlier or not. The ANVR spokesperson also explains whether there are flights available.
Flights cancelled
For example, this weekend Transavia, KLM and easyJet canceled flights between the Netherlands and Israel. Many industry peers worldwide did the same. For example, KLM sister company Air France is temporarily suspending all flights to Tel Aviv. Germany’s Lufthansa told the AFP news agency to cancel all flights to that city until Monday. The Israeli company El Al did fly between Tel Aviv and Schiphol on Sunday.’
Transavia, KLM and easyJet have canceled flights to Tel Aviv scheduled for Monday. The Transavia flight that was supposed to go from Tel Aviv to Amsterdam on Monday has also been cancelled. Two flights from El Al and a flight from Arkia, both Israeli airlines, will fly from Amsterdam to Tel Aviv on Monday.
Director Jo le Poole of Israel Idoed Reizen says that groups traveling through his organization are ‘extremely quiet’. “They feel safe. “At the moment, they are allowed to enter the city in groups of ten in Jerusalem, but they cannot enter the Old City in the Arab part,” he says. Two of the three groups that are in the country with Israel Idoed Reizen were scheduled to travel back to the Netherlands on Monday.
Evacuation plan
“Customers stay in hotels far from the Gaza Strip,” says ANVR director Frank Oostdam. “We have not heard from our tour organizers that the security situation requires an acute evacuation. Any deployment of a military aircraft is a government decision.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs cannot yet say whether there will be an evacuation plan for Dutch people. The Dutch government is not obliged to remove Dutch people from a war zone, especially as long as there are other options to leave the country.
Polish President Andrzej Duda announced on Sunday that Polish citizens are being evacuated from Israel due to the fighting between Hamas and the Israeli armed forces. Several Polish military planes are sent to Israel to pick up Poles. Bulgaria evacuated 90 citizens from Israel by government plane on Sunday. The Bulgarian news agency BTA reported this.
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