A group of 84 citizens and their family members was repatriated, at request, on July 14, 2014 from Gaza Strip and will arrive to Romania today.

The crisis cell was headed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Titus Corlatean, and representatives of the Ministry of National Defence and of other institutions with responsibilities in the national security field.

All repatriation actions were directly coordinated by the Prime Minister, Victor Ponta.

The costs of the entire evacuation operation were provided from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs budget.

Since the beginning of the crisis, Romania`s diplomatic missions from the area offered support and consular assistance to the Romanian citizens and their families who requested repatriation.

Consular teams equipped with mobile means to provide consular assistance were sent from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Headquarters.

At the request of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Minister of National Defence Mircea Dusa ordered the evacuation of the group of citizens with two aircraft (C 130 Hercules and C 27 J Spartan) of the Romanian Air Force which performed back and forth flights from Bucharest, Otopeni Airport to 'Queen Alia' International Airport from Amman, Jordan.

C-130 HERCULES aircraft was operated by a crew headed by Lieutenant Colonel Adrian Takacs and the C-27 J SPARTAN crew was headed by Major (AF) Ion Staiculescu.

The group of Romanian citizens and their families was taken from Gaza Strip, through Erez (Israel) border crossing point and was escorted up to Amman, by transiting the Israeli and Jordanian territories through Allenby/ King Hussein Bridge (Jordan) border crossing point.

In Amman, the group was embarked for Bucharest destination and was permanently assisted by consular teams made up of personnel assigned to Romania`s diplomatic missions from Tel Aviv, Ramallah and Amman, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters as well as by specialized personnel military personnel.

The Romanian authorities officially thanked to the Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian authorities as well as to the Office of the United Nations Development Program from Jerusalem for the entire support offered throughout the entire repatriation operations.

The press will be allowed to assist at the landing of one of the two aircraft which repatriates one of the citizens` group from Gaza Strip to 90 Air Transport Base, beginning with 11:30.

MoND Press Office