Thousands of travelers flying on Thursday afternoon flights began to arrive at Ben Gurion International Airport during the early morning hours out of fear of roadblocks by anti-judicial reform demonstrators.
Recently, the protest organizers announced that they would block the way to the airport due to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s planned flight to Rome. An Israel National News reporter spoke with travelers at Ben Gurion’s departure hall.
Among those travelers was Moshe Priel, a former INN reporter from Be’er Sheva in southern Israel on his way to Morocco. “We left early in the morning at 6:30 to get to the terminal on time, just in case the roads will be blocked.” He added that he did not encounter any roadblocks or traffic on his way to his flight.
Another traveler, who was on her way to Dubai, said: “We didn’t sleep all night what’s going to happen with the demonstrations, and at what time are we going to get there.” She recounted that they left early and traveled through one of the towns near the airport but still encountered a demonstration. Their flight is scheduled for 2:00 PM, so they left early: “It took us some time.”
She is against protesters blocking Prime Minister Netanyahu at the airport: “It’s not nice, we need to look at him like we look at our father, he knows what he’s doing, and anyone else would do the same thing, that the way of the world. We’re proud of our country.
Noam left his home in northern Israel at 6:00 AM to catch his 3:00 PM flight to Madrid. He describes how he was worried about roadblocks: “We were worried. Democracy is also the freedom of movement. They blocked a main intersection near my home. I support the reform, I don’t think it’s perfect, but things must be fixed.”
An additional traveler, who flew into Ben Gurion from Eilat to catch a flight to Turkey, obviously did not encounter roadblocks but spoke about the anti-reform protests that have made their way to Israel’s southernmost city: “There are demonstrations, obviously not as many as in Tel Aviv. I never thought these demonstrations would change anything.”
Watch full the full interviews (in Hebrew):
