TEL AVIV, June 16. /TASS/. More than 100,000 Israelis are currently stranded abroad and cannot return home due to the shutdown of Israeli airspace, Israeli Minister of Transport, National Infrastructure and Road Safety Miri Regev said.
"More than 100,000 [Israelis] are stranded abroad. I am aware of the hardship, but we will not take the risk of bringing in a plane [to return them] and God forbid having a ground incident resulting in more than 300 deaths," the Ynet news website wrote, citing Regev.
The Israeli authorities are working to resolve this issue, the minister stressed, adding that they will soon begin to gradually bring Israelis back as part of a special operation called ‘Safe Return.’ This process will be coordinated by Israel's Ministry of Transport and Road Safety and the Israeli Defense Ministry, Regev said.
Earlier, Israel's El Al Airlines extended all flight cancellations until June 23. The air carrier also said that it was preparing to carry out rescue flights to repatriate Israelis.
On June 15, the Israeli Ministry of Transport and Road Safety announced that the airspace over the country would remain closed to take-offs and landings of civil aviation until further notice and promised to notify people in advance if it decided to reopen the skies.
Overnight into June 13, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, aimed at Iran’s nuclear program. Iran responded in less than 24 hours. In the following days, Tel Aviv and Tehran exchanged strikes again. Both sides reported casualties and damage, and admitted that a number of facilities had been hit, but said the damage was limited.