Israel helped evacuate five Palestinian sheikhs from Indonesia, with which Israel does not have diplomatic relations, after it banned foreigners due to the spread of the coronavirus.
Travel agency Amsalem Tours, which has worked with the Foreign Ministry on many of its operations to bring home Israelis as borders closed around the world, took on the cause of the sheikhs from Nablus together with a Jewish Israeli lawyer who helped them and asked to remain anonymous.
“This was one of our most humanitarian operations ever,” Amsalem Tours CEO Yacov Amsalem said on Tuesday, “because no country was willing to accept the Palestinian sheikhs. Israel proved its humanitarian values in the most respectful way, because we are all human without differences of religion, race or nationality.”
The sheikhs were stranded in Jakarta for three weeks, and the Palestinian Authority was unable to help them after several Arab states, including the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan, declined to allow them to travel through their territory to reach home.
An Amsalem Tours spokesperson said that in the course of their efforts, Russia, the Netherlands, Singapore, Hong Kong and others rejected the sheikhs as well, and would not make an exception to their closed-border policy for them.
In the end, the Japanese All Nippon Airways allowed the group onto a flight to Frankfurt minutes before it was supposed to take off. Once in Germany, the sheikhs boarded a flight to Tel Aviv.
When they arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport, Magen David Adom checked them and they were transferred to the West Bank.
Amsalem said “the value that guides us is the value of life and humanity… We make sure to provide evacuation solutions for everyone.”
The CEO said this case looked impossible, but they and the attorney working to help the sheikhs continued their efforts.
Also Tuesday, Foreign Minister Israel Katz spoke to his German counterpart, Heiko Mass, thanking him for helping Israel bring its citizens home from around the world.
Germany has saved seats for Israelis on a number of its special flights to evacuate its own citizens, helping 17 Israelis return from Peru and 12 from Nepal, among others. Berlin will also help evacuate 150 Israelis from New Zealand.
Israel has also helped evacuate several German citizens, and let Palestinians with German citizenship fly through Ben-Gurion Airport.
The ministers discussed the steps their countries have taken to combat the coronavirus pandemic and agreed to continue to work together.