Today, March 6, 2024, marks one day shy of the 5-months since Hamas’ attack on Israel.
While the mainstream media has alluded to the fact that this war is still “dragging on” the reality is quite the opposite. Rick and Tim from imagine just recently returned from Israel on an inspection trip mid-February where they met with our partners, guides, and even our friends to assess the situation themselves. The conclusion? Israel still has a way to go in far of returning to “normal”, but daily life continues.
One of the biggest indicators that the war is coming to a swift resolution is that the flights into Ben Gurion Airport and beginning to resume. El-Al, Israel’s national airline, continued to offer flights in-and-out of Tel Aviv since the start of the war, with several small regional airlines offering their support during these events. More recently, more airlines such as Turkish, Air France, Ryanair and several others have also stated flights are set to resume in the coming weeks based on traveler interest or have already resumed!
Additionally, Air Canada most recently announced flights are scheduled to commence beginning April 8th, just several days after Delta announced they would resume April 1st. The popular airline, United, has also revealed they intend to resume flights mid-March; however, this date varies by 1-3 days as they assess the situation in greater detail. With all these airlines beginning to fly in-and-out of Tel Aviv over the coming weeks, this provides us with the idea that travel is back, and tourism can commence! Most notably, imagine has their first group returning to the Holy Land next week after they spend some time in both Egypt and Jordan. As we hear more from our group, we’ll be sure to share additional updates and information, as well as pictures of their travels.
As we wrap things up, we also want to remind you that we’ve recently been doing bi-weekly livestreams on both Facebook and YouTube. Here we’ll be answering your questions and concerns live on Tuesdays, as well as sharing current world news in addition to new updates from Israel.
Tim, Global Market Developer, and Rick, President