Significant news for Israel-Italy relations: The Italian Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, announced today (Monday) during his visit to Israel that Italy's national airline, ITA, will resume its flights to Israel on February 1st. At the same time, the minister announced that Italy will remove the travel warning for Israel next week.
ITA's announcement joins a growing wave of foreign airlines announcing their return to Israel. Last week, the low-cost airline Wizz Air resumed flights to Israel. In addition, Ryanair announced that it will resume its flights at the end of March, and recently, EasyJet joined with an announcement to restart its operations in early June. These decisions signal the beginning of the breaking of the air blockade imposed on Israel since the start of the war, when most foreign airlines stopped their flights to Ben Gurion Airport.
The announcements of the removal of the travel warning and the resumption of flights came during Tajani's visit to Israel, where he met with Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar. This is the first senior-level diplomatic visit to Israel since the beginning of the ceasefire and the framework for the release of hostages.
"Israel and Italy today represent stability and strength," said Sa'ar during the joint statement to the media. "Italy is a leading country in Europe and the international community, and Israel is a cornerstone of stability and strength in the heart of the dangerous and unstable Middle East."
Sa'ar emphasized that economic relations are a "central pillar" in the relationship between the two countries, and mentioned a range of areas for future cooperation, including science, health, environment, cybersecurity, energy, space, infrastructure, investment, and technology.
The visit took place following Sa'ar's visit to Italy last week and marks a significant warming of relations between the two countries.