Israel and Egypt inaugurated on Sunday a first direct air link between the cities of Tel Aviv and Sharm el-Sheikh, a seaside resort on the Red Sea, announced the Israeli national company El Al.
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The first flight 5193 of the Sun Dor company of the El Al group, bound for Sharm el-Sheikh, takes off this morning at 10:15 a.m. from Ben Gurion airport (07:15 GMT), it is the first flight of an airline towards Sharm el-Sheikh
," El Al said in a statement.
And flight data from the specialized site FlightRadar24 did indeed report the departure of the aircraft on Sunday morning.
Direct flights already link Israel's Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv with that of Cairo, Egypt having been the first Arab state to sign a peace agreement with Israel in 1979. The two countries have recently strengthened their relations.
At the beginning of October, a plane from the Egyptian national company Egypt Air had landed in Israel, a first.
The flights were previously operated by a subsidiary of Egypt Air, Sinai Air, whose planes did not display the Egyptian flag.
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Since coming to power last June, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has visited Egypt twice, in September to meet President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and last month for a summit with the latter and the leader de facto United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed.
Since the normalization of its relations, in 2020, with the Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, Israel has inaugurated direct flights with these countries.
