Arab News Japan

TOKYO: The Foreign Ministry of Japan announced after the midnight of Saturday that at 11:44 p.m. on October 14 (5:44 p.m. local time), 8 Japanese residents in Israel departed for Dubai on a chartered plane arranged by the government.

The aircraft is scheduled to arrive in Dubai at 2:49 a.m. Japan time on October 15 (9:49 p.m. local time on October 14).

It is the first time for the Japanese government to support the evacuation of Japanese nationals since the start of the fighting between Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel.

 Tokyo decided that it was necessary to arrange a charter flight in light of the situation where there are limited commercial flights from Israel. The charter flight to Dubai covered Japanese nationals who clarified their wish to leave Israel. It is up to each of them to decide where to go after arrival in the UAE city.

Japan said there were around 1300 Japanese residents in Israel and the Palestinian territories when the clash erupted in the areas surrounding Gaza.

(With inputs from JIJI Press)