First military flights evacuating Poles from Israel arrive in Warsaw

Oct 9, 2023 | Society

The first planes evacuating Polish citizens from Israel arrived in Warsaw this morning. A government Boeing 737 landed at 5:15 a.m. local time carrying around 130 people, followed by two C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft carrying over 120 people. There are reportedly hundreds more Poles awaiting evacuation.

Meanwhile, it has been reported that a Polish-born Israeli historian is among those to have been kidnapped by Hamas during its attack on Israel over the weekend.

The Polish government announced on Sunday that it would begin evacuating citizens from Israel. That followed reports that up to 200 Poles were camped out at Tel Aviv airport following the suspension of most international flights due to Hamas’s attack.

The head of the Polish Chamber of Tourism (PIT), Paweł Niewiadomski, told the Rzeczpospolita daily that those at the airport were mostly tourists. PIT has determined that there are a further 603 Polish tourists at hotels in Israel and 200 have already been evacuated to neighbouring Jordan and Egypt by bus.

Broadcaster RMF reported unofficially today that the foreign ministry has a list of 2,000 Polish citizens who want to be evacuated from Israel.

In the early hours of this morning, deputy foreign minister, Paweł Jabłoński, announced that “all Polish citizens [who were] staying at the airport in Israel found a place on a plane”.

Jabłoński noted that diplomatic staff were on the ground assisting with further evacuations but called for people to show understanding and patience given the difficult situation.

“No one will be left without help – but providing it to everyone at the same time is very difficult,” wrote Jabłoński. His remarks followed a widely shared report by Onet, a leading news website, about a Pole stuck in Israel who said that the Polish embassy had not answered his dozens of attempts to call them.

The foreign ministry today announced that it has set up a special helpline for Polish citizens that can be reached at +48 22 523 88 80.

As well as its Hercules and Boeing 737 aircraft, the Polish military is also using a CASA C-295 plane as part of its evacuation operation – codenamed Neon – which is planned to run from 8 to 15 October.

Meanwhile, a member of the Jewish community in the Polish city of Łódź revealed that a Polish-Israeli historian, Alex Dancyger (also written as Alex Danzig), was among those to have been abducted by Hamas during its attack.

“Unfortunately, I have confirmed information about Dancyger’s abduction from his friends from Israel,” Jarosław Papis-Rozenbaum told the Polish Press Agency (PAP). “He was abducted by Hamas forces.”

Papis-Rozenbaum noted that Dancyger was born in Warsaw in 1948 and has been “an amazing figure” in promoting Polish-Israeli relations. Dancyger was interviewed in 2021 by Tygodnik Powszechny, a Polish Catholic weekly about his work fostering dialogue between the two nations.

Michał Bilewicz, a Polish-Jewish academic, noted that Dancyger lives in Nir Oz, a kibbutz near the Gaza border. He added that Dancyger had for years trained visiting Polish teachers at Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust centre and had himself visited Polish schools.


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Main image credit: MON_GOV_PL/Twitter

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