The way the Portuguese authorities are managing the repatriation of Portuguese and Portuguese-Israelis fleeing the conflict between Israel and Palestinian armed movements was praised this Wednesday by several passengers of the plane that arrived in Lisbon from Larnaca.
“What Portugal did was amazing, it was incredible,” described in tears, in statements in English to the Lusa agency, Tamara da Silva, a Portuguese-Iraeli, who arrived this morning at Figo Maduro airport in Lisbon, with her Portuguese husband and three children, the eldest of 7 years old, another of 5 and a third of one and a half years old.
“We couldn’t have expected better, we were picked up at the airport [em Telavive]everything was very well arranged, we did not have to wait long, we boarded the military plane (C-130 of the Portuguese Air Force), it was an hour’s flight to Cyprus, there we were received by the civil protection services, we spent through the night, and we even felt safe”he said.
‘We left Larnaca this morning [na costa sudeste na ilha de Chipre] on a big plane [da TAP, fretado pelo Governo] and everything was very well organised,” he emphasized, adding: “Thank you very much, Portugal!”.
“We couldn’t imagine having to stay there another day,” he said.
Micael Silva and Ana Rita Cavaco, a pair of Portuguese researchers who were just a few days away from their parents, had been working at the Weizmann Science Institute in Rehovot, about 30 kilometers south of Tel Aviv, for more than a year, and had always been in conversation contact the emergency consular office in the Israeli capital.
“We knew that this repatriation mission was taking place, we were always in contact with the emergency consular service, and the fact that we were very close to the end of the pregnancy accelerated the decision to come,” said Ana Rita Cavaco.
“Things could escalate and then it would be very difficult to reach a conclusion,” the two say, in a sentence started by one and completed by the other.
Micael Silva and Ana Rita Cavaco are from Lisbon and Tamara Silva has a family in the Portuguese capital, where she will stay with her husband and children, but this is not the case with all the Portuguese-Israelis who were part of the group of 152 people with a Portuguese passport who disembarked in Lisbon this morning.
Jonathan Ianai, also married to a Portuguese-Israeli woman, arrived with his wife and three children, but “didn’t know yet” where he would stay.
“I don’t know what to expect. We tried to tell the children that this was some kind of adventure, because otherwise it could cause mental disorders in them,” he told Lusa.
When asked if his family had received instructions from Portuguese authorities on how they would be accommodated, he admitted “not yet”, confident that they would “find somewhere to stay”.
Ianai also did not clarify whether the family “has the means to stay for a long time” in the situation they arrive in Portugal, but emphasized that they are “hopeful that this [a guerra] over quickly.”
“The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are working intensively to find everyone responsible for what happened, but it is a difficult task because thousands of people, thousands of terrorists, entered Israel and no one was waiting there,” he said . said.
“We have seen how much the Americans have invested in capturing bin Laden. I believe the same will happen: Israel will not stop until it finds all the men responsible for these actions and brings them to justice,” Ianai added to it.
The plane that tonight transported a total of 166 people from Cyprus to Lisbon, fleeing the conflict between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas, landed at Figo Maduro airport on Wednesday at 10.43 am.
Foreign Minister João Gomes Cravinho, who was there to receive them, told journalists that in addition to 152 Portuguese and Portuguese-Israelis on board, there were also 14 citizens of other nationalities, such as Spaniards (nine), Irish, Bulgarians and Lithuanians . , among other things.
“We are pleased with the fact that it was possible to carry out this operation under very difficult circumstances,” said the minister, who lamented “the death of a Portuguese-Israeli” and expressed his “deep condolences to the family” , and revealed that “four more are missing.”
Asked about the conditions for receiving repatriated citizens, the minister said that “the majority are tourists who were there and are returning to their homes.”
According to Gomes Cravinho, there are “another 2,000 Portuguese” on the consular lists, “but for the time being they have not expressed the desire to return to Portugal”.
Source: DN
