A little-known airline has linked Cairo and Tel Aviv for decades
atlasobscura.com
atlasobscura.com
The plane was a standard 737, but completely unmarked, sitting in a remote bus bay far from the terminal. Load was abysmal, maybe 20 or so people. Service was the usual surly Egyptair (aka "Misery Air", Misr being the Arabic name for Egypt) experience, but it was a short flight of only an hour or so.
On arrival at GZA, we were driven over to the nearby Rafah border, herded into a holding area, instructed to identify and open our luggage, and then moved to a different room to be frisked and interrogated by Israeli security while another set of guards pawed through the bags, sight unseen. All staff involved were very much not in a hurry, and all in all, it took about four hours (!) for the 20 of us to go from wheels on the ground to getting into the airport terminal, through Palestinian immigration and then Gaza proper. And I didn't even get a passport stamp. (I did get one from the Erez border when crossing by land into Israel proper later, which raised some eyebrows later when leaving Israel...)
At the time, the airport served around 2 flights per day (Cairo and Amman, Jordan, IIRC), but the departures board optimistically listed a whole slew of fantasy flights from all over the Arab world and Europe (Milan! Istanbul!). I remember seeing a school group on a tour through this airport and thinking that odds are very high that all these kids here will live their lives without ever leaving this 40x6 km slice of land (large chunks of which are off-limits buffer areas), packed with 2 million Palestinians living cheek to jowl.
Shortly thereafter in 2000, the al-Aqsa Intifada started and the airport was bombed by Israeli fighters. It's been in ruins ever since.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasser_Arafat_International_Ai...
The sad truth is that you were probably right regarding the kids.
This was 2000, shortly before the intifada broke out and travel like this became near-impossible.
Monaco's density is higher, and it's considered a paradise:
https://www.infoplease.com/world/population-statistics/popul...
And many people can and do take vacations. In fact, that's how coronoavirus entered gaza -- from someone returning from Pakistan on Vacation: https://www.geo.tv/latest/278852-gazas-two-confirmed-coronav...
Yeah, some people take vacations. It's often impossible to do, and those people are by far not even close to being the majority.
> that odds are very high that all these kids here will live their lives without ever leaving this 40x6 km slice of land (large chunks of which are off-limits buffer areas), packed with 2 million Palestinians living cheek to jowl.
I was giving some other information. Don't assume bad intent. One of my 4 grandparents was born in Gaza City in 1909, and left in 1929 when he was kicked out.
In fact, when France decided a very light blocus in 1962 and started treating Monaco simply as a foreign state (simply reinstating border controls) it only took a few months for Monaco to give in, stop being a tax haven and adopt a new constitution.
So Monaco might actually be a good example of how difficult the situation is in Gaza right now, because it's under much more difficult conditions than those that were enough to make Monaco cave in. And Gaza started from a much worse position to begin with.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Aqsa_Intifada
>High numbers of casualties were caused among civilians as well as combatants.
Now there's a sentence that, you can tell, has had its wording viciously fought over in a Talk page, resulting in the garbled passive-voice abomination left standing.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties "An estimated total of 70–85 million people perished"
Without taking sides I can see how difficult it can be to find wording that various interests can tolerate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Aqsa_Intifada says it lasted "4 years, 4 months, 1 week and 4 days"
It also has the Wikipedia standard conflict "Casualties and losses" tally.
> How would you have it phrased?
Without commenting on this particular event, the passive voice typically doesn't identify the actor and can thus be used to omit or obscure responsibility.
Consider the classic 'mistakes were made' vs. active alternatives such as 'we made mistakes' or 'they made mistakes'.
This seems normal now in Israel. But you did have to ask for it not to be stamped previously, which rumour was it annoyed them, but in reality most people must have asked I think they were always cranky.
ie. - https://againstthecompass.com/en/avoid-israeli-passport-stam...
Here’s one from the 1980s with markings. https://www.airliners.net/photo/Air-Sinai/Boeing-737-266-Adv...
Unmarked photos are here. https://onemileatatime.com/air-sinai/
I am not so sure about that.
If all (or at least most) sides wanted peace, we already would have. The problem is: all sides only want peace on their terms and there do not seem to exist "common peace conditions" which all (or at least most) involved countries and organizations are okay with.
Oh there a LOT of other players, most importantly the USA here. If you want to paint a 10000 ft picture of the last few decades, it's the USA stuffing the Israel with enough money so the real crazies can't raise to power. Unleashing the full military might of Israel in a traditional war again would be absolutely horrible: they have armed unmanned ground vehicles, main battle tanks which can intercept even the most advanced MANPADS and more.
No I don’t. This has nothing to do with the technicalities of running Air Sinai.
Israel's public has a very strong aversion to casualties, much more so than when the state's survival was at risk.
The Israeli public couldn't tolerate the 120 soldiers killed in the 2nd Lebanon war there is absolutely nothing to back that there is any political will in the general public or the politicians to pursue an actual traditional war not to mention that there is no one to wage war against.
Waging war against Egypt would serve no strategic purposes Israel is rather happy selling them gas.
Waging war against Jordan would be taking over 8 or so million Palestinians which again for what purpose?
Lebanon it's in Israel best interests for Lebanon to sort it's shit out internally the last time it formed an alliance with the Free Lebanon Government during the Israeli-Maronite alliance it didn't end up well. Lebanon is slowly but surely heading into another civil war and Israel would likely stay the fuck out of it unless Hezbollah would drag it in.
Syria is a failed state there is absolutely nothing for Israel to gain by going beyond the Golan Heights that provide a good natural defensive barrier and Israel has absolutely nothing to gain by potentially dragging Russia into the conflict since Syria is their only open warm water port.
Yes Israel has a very capable army, it likely cannot be matched in a true traditional war in the region but it has nothing to gain from waging one.
Israel always had goals in each conflict and war it engaged in (regardless if you agree with their goals or not) and unless there will be a drastic geopolitical shift in Egypt, Jordan, Syria or Lebanon there would be no reason to wage an all out war against any of them.
P.S. MANPADS stands for man portable air defense systems these aren't anti tank weapons. While Israel has deployed active defense systems for ground vehicles these surely won't be used against MANPADS.
as if a (un)healthy dose of good ole' propaganda couldn't fix that
Also the benefit of having a mandatory conscription is that nearly every household would be affected all of a sudden propaganda doesn’t work anymore.
Israeli airlines do not fly to Egypt however most Israeli tourists only go into the Sinai so they can fly / bus / drive into to Eilat and cross via the land crossing.
It didn't last very long (a few years), though you can still technically go the whole way by multiple busses.
https://www.egged.co.il/Days-Article-10228-A-tale-of-two-cit...
https://simpleflying.com/the-story-behind-london-heathrows-g...
Air Sinai is a regular passenger airline flying regular scheduled passenger flights available to the public using Egyptair staff and aircraft, just one which is only kept open for political purposes and isn't actively marketed [except, apparently by an overseas GSA] due to conflicting political sensitivities.
If you mean visas and the like, also yes; to go from Egypt to Israel requires both an exit visa from Egypt and a tourist visa from Israel.
>Intriguingly, 2014 is also when Cairo International Airport and Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv began displaying the Air Sinai flight on their public check-in boards