Priya Aditi
‘Operation Ajay’: India is returning 286 additional passengers from war-torn Israel, including 18 Nepalese citizens, the external affairs minister S Jaishankar announced on Tuesday.
Kanta Rizal, the ambassador of Nepal to Israel, told the PTI that while some of the eighteen Nepalese nationals remained in perilous regions, others desired to return home.
“We sent 254 Nepalese citizens on the Nepal Airlines on October 12 and may look to arrange more flights to take them out,” according to her.
This flight marks the fifth operation conducted under the programme ‘Operation Ajay’, which was initiated by India on October 11 to aid in the repatriation of Indian nationals from Israel, where Hamas, a Palestinian militant organisation, is engaged in hostilities.
Minister of state (MoS) for external affairs V Muraleedharan stated on Tuesday that additional flights will be operated if necessary in view of the impending situation.
“As of now, five flights have materialized; should the situation demand it, additional flights will be operated accordingly.” “We have flown aircraft from Israel to India for the past four to five days,” the minister was reportedly quoted by ANI as saying.
“Conflict erupted in Israel, the Indian Embassy had issued an advisory, requesting the Indian citizens there to be cautious and also to register their names in the Indian Embassy…,” Muraleedharan stated.
“The Indian Embassy is taking the call on who all have to travel to India based on the requests of the people and their ground situation there,” said the diplomat.
Four chartered flights originating from Tel Aviv transported 906 passengers, including minors, last week.
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Gaza has suffered at least 2,778 fatalities and 9,700 injuries, as reported by the Health Ministry. More than 1,400 Israelis were slaughtered on October 7 by Hamas, with the overwhelming majority being civilians.
