All the Israelis known to be in Cyprus are safe and well, the Charge d’Affaires reported to the Foreign Ministry here today. There are some 15 families known to be in Cyprus, many of them Solel Boneh employes working on a project undertaken by the Israeli construction firm on the island. In addition to the 15 families, there is the staff of the Israel Embassy and their families who are all safe in the Embassy premises. The others are mostly in the Hilton Hotel, although some are in smaller towns outside Nicosia.
Meanwhile, Israel’s aerial communications were still reduced to a single air line today–El AI, the national carrier–after all foreign airlines suspended operations to and from Ben Gurion Airport because of the war on Cyprus. There was no response to Transport Minister Gad Yaacobi’s appeal to foreign carriers to fly a new route well south of the Cyprus danger zone.
El Al, however, is maintaining its regular schedules and added seven unscheduled flights to European cities today to ease the backlog of passengers stranded by the foreign carriers. El Al was forced to cancel its flights to Istanbul where the airport remains closed and to Teheran which lies on an air route that passes through restricted areas.
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