The first A330 of the Air and Space Army that yesterday flew to Tel Aviv to repatriate Spaniards trapped in Israel after the Hamas attack has landed this morning at the Torrejón de Ardoz air base (Madrid) with more than 200 people evacuated. . The second military plane, which was scheduled to take off late yesterday, finally did so this morning, in order to bring back the group made up of about 500 compatriots.
As reported by the Ministry of Defense, the first A330 plane has transported to Madrid, in addition to Spanish citizens, people from the European Union and third countries residing in Spain. All of them remained trapped at the Tel Aviv airport after the airlines suspended commercial flights due to the insecurity in which the country is mired.
On that list there are about 500 Spaniards who had traveled to Israel for work or tourism reasons. For the moment, the Government rules out an evacuation of the Spanish colony residing in Israel or in the Palestinian territories, which amounts to about 10,000 people.
However, both the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, and his colleague in the Council of Ministers and head of Defense, Margarita Robles, advanced that if the situation continues to complicate and more Spaniards ask to leave the country, the sending of another military aircraft as long as security conditions allow it.
The head of Spanish diplomacy has also confirmed the takeoff of the second plane and has underlined the collaboration with Defense so that the operation to bring the Spaniards who could not leave Israel "is a success."
