With Flights Disrupted, Cruise Ship Creates Lifeline for Israeli Travelers
With most international flights to Tel Aviv disrupted due to the conflict between Israel and Iran, a cruise ship has become a lifeline for those who want to get in and out of the country. The Israeli-operated Crown Iris recently delivered more than a thousand foreign visitors from Israeli shores to Cyprus, then took aboard an estimated 1,800 Israeli citizens for the return voyage back.
On Tuesday, Crown Iris got under way from Israel, carrying about 1,500 foreign nationals who had been visiting under the Birthright program. Under Israeli Navy escort, the vessel made the short crossing to Limassol, completing the 14-hour transit uneventfully.
Crown Iris also has thousands of passengers waiting to make the crossing in the other direction. When flights to and from Tel Aviv were suspended last week, Cyprus' Larnaka International was the nearest safe location for midflight diversions. An estimated 6,500 returning Israeli nationals found themselves unexpectedly in Cyprus, or chose to go there in search of another way into Israel, prominent Cypriot rabbi Arie Zeev Raskin told AP.
On Thursday, hundreds of these returnees boarded Crown Iris to make the 140-nautical mile voyage from Limassol to Ashdod. YNet estimated the passenger manifest at 1,800 people, and reported that the cruise ship planned to make two more voyages by Monday in order to accommodate the demand from returning Israelis - some of whom are military reservists.
“We acted as quickly as possible to implement the plan to bring Israelis home from abroad, which we view as a vital national mission during wartime,” Mano Maritime Chairman and owner Moshe Mano told Ynet.
The Crown Iris' AIS signal has been received only intermittently over the past three days, indicating that either the crew temporarily disabled it for security purposes or it was jammed by electronic warfare systems.
Demand for a maritime transportation lifeline may wane in the coming days as air travel resumes. Outbound flights from Israel for select groups - young foreign visitors, sports groups, tourists, diplomats and others - are expected to restart next week. In the inbound direction, national airline El Al has already begun operating repatriation flights out of Cyprus, Greece, Italy and elsewhere in Europe, and is on track to resume intercontinental repatriation flights for returning Israelis by the end of this week.
Top image: Crown Iris (file image courtesy Chalkis Sotiris Boutsaxis / CC BY SA 4.0)
