Several hundred Romanians are still in Israel, many of them traveling pilgrims. Patriarchate spokesman Vasile Benescu says all Romanian pilgrims – about 800 – are safe, that there have been no incidents, that some have returned today, the rest will return “very soon, in organized groups”.

He said that the Romanian Patriarchate is temporarily suspending pilgrimages to Israel.

“All the Romanian pilgrims are safe, there were no incidents, some of them returned today, the rest will return very soon, in organized groups, depending on the pace of flight permits, in this context only controlled by the Israel Defense Forces. Pilgrims will no longer travel to Israel in the near future. The Patriarchate maintained and maintains constant contact with the Romanian embassy in Tel Aviv, which promptly and very coherently communicated the situation,” Benescu said on Digi FM on Sunday.

According to him, of the nearly 800 pilgrims who went to Israel during this period, 250 traveled with the help of the Patriarchate’s basilica.

“Of the 250, 200 returned this morning, the remaining 50 will return tonight with the Tarom race,” Benescu added.

Testimony of a priest in Israel with a group of pilgrims

Priest Mircea Lung, who is in Israel with a group of 56 pilgrims from Maramures and Cluj, told Digi24 on Sunday what they went through after the war started. He says they saw dead people on the highway, armed soldiers, security filters, barricades, which in certain places are controlled by the Israeli army. The group was in Palestine, but they were moved to a hotel in Jerusalem.

• “What is shown on TV is a small fraction. It’s just that people punctured on the track, on the street. I saw a minibus with 8 people where everyone who was there was stabbed and they are just dead in the minibus. (…)
• And we found this out yesterday around 09:00, while staying at the Romanian settlement in Jericho. After we left there, we were informed that we should return to the hotel immediately.
• The hotel is located in Palestine. We entered Palestine with great difficulty, the gates were barred, and the army stood at the entrance and did not let us in. They did not have time to close one of them, because it took 5-10 minutes to close this gate. We managed to get into the hotel, and when we returned, they did not want to let us out.
• But we told them that we had a flight to the country, and they let us go. All cars searched, people searched, and we arrived in the Jerusalem area. There is an area near our hotel where the police have barricaded the entire area.
• Several streets were blocked, cars were stopped, and people who were searched were pressed against the wall and directed by the military,” said the priest, who will leave for Romania with a group of pilgrims on Sunday evening.

Also, on Sunday evening and Monday, two groups from Alba, consisting of 49 and 28 people on pilgrimage to Israel, will also go to Romania. They will return by plane from Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, the expenses related to the repatriation will be borne by the Orthodox Archdiocese of Alba Iulia, the spokesman of the Orthodox Archdiocese of Alba Iulia, Olivier Botoi, told agerpres, as quoted by Agerpres.

Some 800 to 900 Romanians were on vacation or on a pilgrimage to Israel on Saturday, and Romanian authorities are looking for a solution to bring them back to the country, President Klaus Iohannis and Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania announced the activation of the Crisis Center.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that after the actions of the MAE Crisis Center on Saturday night, 346 Romanian and foreign citizens were repatriated from the State of Israel on two TAROM flights (189 on the first flight, respectively 157 on the second flight).

More than 90 Romanians fled Israel to Jordan and are asking Bucharest for help to return to the country

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