The first flight carrying evacuated Israelis from Amsterdam landed at Tel Aviv International Airport on Friday, the Israel Air Traffic Authority announced. The Israeli government proceeded with the evacuation as a result of violent clashes after a football match in the Dutch capital. TASR informs about it based on the AFP report.
Israeli citizens will be brought to their home country on two flights scheduled before the match. According to the agency, the flight that landed in Tel Aviv on Friday was probably one of them.
At the same time, the national Israeli airline El Al announced on Friday that three more planes to ferry Israelis back to home country amid unrest between pro-Palestinian protesters and Israeli fanswhich started after the Europa League match between the Dutch club Ajax Amsterdam and the Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv.
El Al specified in a post on the social network Facebook that the three flights are transporting “hundreds of Israeli passengers” for free and that they will land in the country on Friday evening or early Saturday morning. The airline representative also reminded that medical personnel will also be present on board the planes.
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Friday afternoon that the authorities have already managed to locate the missing Israeli citizens with whom they lost contact in Amsterdam. Injured persons have also already been released from the Dutch hospital.
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof condemned the riots on Friday. “This is a terrible anti-Semitic attack. We will not tolerate it. We will prosecute the perpetrators. I feel deeply ashamed that this could happen in the Netherlands in 2024,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of EU leaders in Budapest.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán also condemned the riots. “For us Hungarians, this is unacceptable,” said Orbán, whose country is home to the largest Jewish community in Central Europe, with approximately 100,000 inhabitants.
