Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport scheduled to partially reopen on Thursday

Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv is scheduled to partially reopen on Thursday for selected inbound flights. The gradual reopening plan envisions one inbound flight per hour, eventually two, with the airport operating 24/7.

Ten percent of the seats on the inbound flights are earmarked for humanitarian cases. The current main purpose is to bring home tens of thousands of Israeli nationals who have been stranded in various countries since the Iran war began on Saturday morning.

It is currently unclear when the airport will open for departing flights. Thousands of foreign tourists are also stranded in Israel with currently limited travel options.

“Our mission is to bring back Israelis safely,” Israeli Transportation Minister Miri Regev announced during a media conference on Tuesday.

“According to the outline from the second day of the operation, we will be able to return about 10,000 passengers a day,” Regev explained. The airport will initially permit only narrow-body aircraft capable of carrying about 200 passengers.

He emphasized that civilian air traffic will be carefully conducted in accordance with the prevailing security situation: “We will consider humanitarian cases and ask the airlines to consider special cases, but we must remember that the safety of passengers is of utmost importance."

The Transportation Ministry estimates that all stranded Israelis could be brought home within a week to 10 days. It is still unclear whether, and to what extent, the Israeli national airline El Al will be allowed to operate flights on the Jewish Sabbath.

The airline announced it was ready to resume operations in accordance with government instructions. El Al will reportedly focus on bringing home Israelis from over 20 different destinations with an emphasis on medical humanitarian cases.

El Al announced that it intends to contact its customers directly. Meanwhile, the Israeli airline Israir is expected to resume flights from various European destinations to Ben Gurion Airport, starting with its first inbound flight from Rome.

In addition, Israir plans to resume flights from Berlin, Athens, Tbilisi, Batumi, Barcelona, Bergamo, Munich, Grenoble, and Rovaniemi. The airline also intends to continue operating flights to Taba, Egypt, as an additional hub to bring Israelis home.

Naomi Burnham, a resident in the central Israeli city Modi’in, was stranded in London, where she had traveled to visit children who currently live there. “Now we’re stuck here,” Burnham said on Monday in an interview with the Times of Israel.

She did not succeed in booking a flight home for herself and her son on El Al before Israel closed its airspace for civilian air traffic amid the war with Iran. “It’s not unpleasant not to have to run to a bunker, but I want to be with my people," Burnham explained.