Hundreds of Romanians from the Gaza Strip Return to the Country

The first plane with Romanians from the Gaza Strip landed in Bucharest on Wednesday, November 8th. Romania’s Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu and Foreign Affairs Minister Luminita Odobescu went to Cairo, Egypt, to ensure all the procedures were being conducted accordingly, such as for the Romanians who asked to get back to the country to be safely evacuated.

When we write this post, 93 Romanians have been brought to the country, and a second plane with 51 Romanians is to take off from Cairo tonight. A total of 144 citizens will be repatriated by Wednesday, while other 150 will be brought back home the following days.

“We sent an unmistakable signal that the Romanian state doesn’t leave any Romanian behind,” said Prime Minister Ciolacu when he landed in Bucharest.

I think that both I and the minister made a gesture of normalcy today, and more than that, we sent an unmistakable signal that the Romanian state does not leave any Romanian behind.

Today, 129 Romanians were recovered, both Romanians with Romanian citizenship in Romania and Romanians from the Republic of Moldova. I think the next aircraft will land in an hour, and, as you well know, there is already a list of 51 Romanians. More requests came, over 100, to come to Romania with their families in the next period.

I want to thank, first and foremost, the minister and his team from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, all the institutions of the Romanian state involved in this action to recover the Romanians from the Gaza Strip. Let me specify very clearly: throughout this period, there was direct collaboration between the Government of Romania and the President of Romania; last but not least, I would like to thank the State of Israel, Egypt, Qatar and the United States of America for making this action a success.

The crisis cell at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will continue to work until we recover the last Romanian from the Gaza Strip who wants to come to Romania or the Republic of Moldova.

Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu on arriving in Romania with the citizens repatriated from the Gaza Strip

The operations to repatriate all the Romanians in the Gaza Strip are ongoing, and so far, about 300 citizens expressed their wish to get back to the country.