More Flights to Israel Added Ahead of Elections

Transportation Minister Miri Regev announced Sunday that after consulting with Health and Foreign Ministers Yuli Edelstein and Gabi Ashkenazi, additional flights will open for Israelis wishing to return ahead of the March 23 elections.

Among the destinations from which it will be possible to return to Israel are Madrid, Amsterdam, Larnaca and Addis Ababa.

Edelstein said at the Cabinet meeting Sunday morning that the Health Ministry would not agree to raise the limit of the number of daily returnees permitted at Ben Gurion Airport to 4,000 people a day, as per the request of some Cabinet members.

“The one thing that can spoil all of the improvement we have seen is the opening of Ben Gurion airport,” Edelstein said. “It could end our entire vaccination campaign. No more 10 people in the restaurants or in the halls, no fans in the stands – that’s it.”

“The variants that will enter will endanger us very much. The position of the Health Ministry will be presented in the Supreme Court, according to which up to 3,000 a day will enter, no more,” he stressed.

“I hear here the voices which call to ‘open the sky,’ and I say that if we had listened to those voices we would not have had about 6,000 dead, but about 16,000 dead,” Edelstein said.