Romania’s ambassador to Israel, Radu Ioanid, told Agerpres on Tuesday that the situation with Romanians in the war-torn country is under control, but he urged Romanian citizens to avoid traveling to Israel and leave quickly if they have already arrived.

“Airport [din Tel Aviv] works fine There are airlines, especially Western European and North American ones, that have suspended flights, but the airport is operating normally. Here and there the explosions of anti-aircraft guns and the alarm of rockets fired by Hamas are heard, but both human and material losses have been relatively minor, and vehicular traffic has decreased. (…) Life goes on. Near Gaza, I wouldn’t dare to describe the situation so rosy,” Ioanid said.

He claimed that the situation with Romanians is under control and that there were groups and individual tourists who arrived after the fighting and bombing stopped, and there are people who canceled tickets from companies that no longer operate flights to and from Israel. The latter, he clarified, are the priority task of the Romanian authorities.

There are also Romanians who have tickets but want to leave as soon as possible because they do not feel safe.

“Hundreds of requests per day, four or five planes every day. (…) The figures fluctuate greatly from day to day and from hour to hour. Every day, hundreds of people leave and hundreds of new requests. We hope that in a few days this pressure on our colleagues from the consulate and on TAROM will decrease,” Radu Ioanid said.

Flights bringing Romanians from Israel are operated by TAROM, which has added flights, as well as by private companies.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported on Tuesday morning that 596 Romanian citizens were brought into the country overnight by two Tarom flights and two private airline flights.

The Romanian ambassador advises to avoid trips to Israel, except for urgent ones

Ioanid advises Romanians who want to go to Israel not to do so unless they have professional or family circumstances. “This is not the time,” he emphasized.

“We do not know whether the military situation will worsen. And if the airport closes for several days, it will be very difficult to leave. Not impossible, but very difficult – through the port of Jordan or Haifa. We do not want to be in a situation where there will be such a number of cases,” the ambassador added.

Radu Ioanid advises Romanians who are already in Israel, if they have return tickets for a distant date, to try to leave as soon as possible.

“If their plane ticket is more than 24, 48, 72 hours and they feel safe staying in a hotel with a bunker, it’s better to stay until the company they came with honors the plane ticket,” Ioanid said.

The ambassador also noted that the diplomatic mission does not consider Israelis who have Romanian citizenship and “who have houses here and have the opportunity to try to leave Israel to Romania with one or two stops to be an emergency.” He noted that in mixed families there were cases when the husband had to join the army and decided to send his wife and children to Romania.

Ioanid reminded that there are teams of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the Tel Aviv airport that are ready to provide assistance to the Romanians.

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