TEL AVIV: The first direct flight between the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv and Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh took off on Sunday, Israeli national airline El-Al said.
Flight 5193, operated by El-Al subsidiary Sun d’Or, departed Ben Gurion International Airport at 0715 GMT, the carrier said in a statement.
Direct flights have long been in operation between Tel Aviv and Cairo, since Egypt in 1979 became the first Arab country to sign a peace accord with Israel.
The two countries have lately bolstered their ties.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has twice visited Egypt after coming to power in June, and met President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in September.
In early October, a plane branded with the logo of Egypt’s national carrier Egyptair landed in Israel for the first time, a flight described as “historic” by the Israel Airport Authority.
Prior to that, Egyptian flights to Israel had been operated by an Egyptair subsidiary, Air Sinai, set up exclusively for the Israeli route and without displaying the Egyptian flag on the exterior of its planes.
Some in Egypt continue to oppose ties with the Jewish state.
The Egyptian branch of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which opposes Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, has called for a boycott of two Israeli-organized dance festivals due to take place in Sinai over the coming days.
Until 2020, Egypt and Jordan were the only Arab governments to have normalized relations with Israel.
That year, they were joined by Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates, which all now operate direct flights to the Jewish state.
Direct flights start between Tel Aviv and Sharm El-Sheikh
https://arab.news/zs94u
Direct flights start between Tel Aviv and Sharm El-Sheikh
MSF will keep operating in Gaza ‘as long as we can’: mission head
- The head of Doctors Without Borders in the Palestinian territories told AFP the charity would continue working in Gaza for as long as possible
AMMAN:The head of Doctors Without Borders in the Palestinian territories told AFP the charity would continue working in Gaza for as long as possible, following an Israeli decision to end its activities there.
In early February, Israel announced it was terminating all the activities in Gaza by the medical charity, known by its French acronym MSF, after it failed to provide a list of its Palestinian staff.
MSF has slammed the move, which takes effect on March 1, as a “pretext” to obstruct aid.
“For the time being, we are still working in Gaza, and we plan to keep running our operations as long as we can,” Filipe Ribeiro told AFP in Amman, but said operations were already facing challenges.
“Since the beginning of January, we are not anymore in the capacity to get international staff inside Gaza. The Israeli authorities actually denied any entry to Gaza, but also to the West Bank,” he said.
Ribeiro added that MSF’s ability to bring medical supplies into Gaza had also been impacted.
“They’re not allowed for now, but we have some stocks in our pharmacies that will allow us to keep running operations for time being,” he said.
“We do have teams in Gaza that are still working, both national and international, and we have stocks.”
In December, Israel announced it would prevent 37 aid organizations, including MSF, from working in Gaza from March 1 for failing to submit detailed information about their Palestinian employees, drawing widespread condemnation from NGOs and the United Nations.
It had alleged that two MSF employees had links with Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which the medical charity has repeatedly and vehemently denied.
MSF says it did not provide the names of its Palestinian staff because Israeli authorities offered no assurances regarding their safety.
Ribeiro warned of the massive impact the termination of MSF’s operations would have for health care in war-shattered Gaza.
“MSF is one of the biggest actors when it comes to the health provision in Gaza and the West Bank, and if we are obliged to leave, then we will create a huge void in Gaza,” he said.
The charity says it currently provides at least 20 percent of hospital beds in the territory and operates around 20 health centers.
In 2025 alone, it carried out more than 800,000 medical consultations, treated more than 100,000 trauma cases and assisted more than 10,000 infant deliveries.
