Check-in services were halted and parking entrances blocked on one of the year’s busiest travel days, affecting nearly 100,000 passengers and 600 flights before operations gradually resumed; Gadi Eisenkot and Keren Turner blamed government mismanagement Related TopicsDisruptions at Ben Gurion Airport on Thursday forced authorities to sharply reduce air traffic and eventually halt all landings before operations began gradually resuming about an hour later, with chaos expected to continue for several more hours as politicians traded blame over the crisis.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at airport workers, saying: “Ben Gurion Airport will remain open and operate as usual. Anyone who gets in the way will be fired.”Chaos at Ben Gurion Airport (Photo: Shaul Golan)The disruption came on one of the busiest travel days of the year, with nearly 100,000 passengers and some 600 flights scheduled to pass through Israel’s main international airport.Gadi Eisenkot, chairman of the Yashar! party, blamed the government, saying the scenes at the airport reflected what he described as the Netanyahu government’s failed management.“The chaos at Ben Gurion Airport on one of the busiest days of the year is not an isolated incident,” Eisenkot said. “Israel’s citizens deserve leadership that takes responsibility, confronts challenges and knows how to manage systems. A responsible transportation minister would be on her way to Ben Gurion Airport right now, but naturally, the failed minister is not in the country.”Keren Turner of the Beyachad party, who previously served as director general of the Transportation Ministry, also attacked the government and the ministry’s management.“Usually, the Israeli public does not understand how much it is harmed by poor public service. Today it is getting an example of that and paying the price for a ministry in the process of collapsing because of political appointments and failed management,” she wrote.Turner added that anyone currently stranded at the airport, stuck in traffic or waiting for a bus that never arrives should know “the situation does not have to be this way.”“We have been conditioned to accept a government that normalizes the idea that nothing can be solved, but soon it will be different,” she said. “Soon the ‘diamond’ system will disappear, and the Transportation Ministry’s management will not all leave together for a ‘private vacation’ in Morocco for a week at the end of August. Soon we will establish a government that works for the citizens, and together we will repair the State of Israel.”Tourism Ministry Director General Michael Yitzhakov wrote on X that the airport chaos stemmed from “bullying and disgraceful conduct,” though he did not specify whom he was accusing.“It is time to put an end to this lawlessness, and quickly,” he wrote.The Israel Airports Authority said that after the workers’ committee ordered disruptions at Ben Gurion Airport, air traffic was reduced beginning at 2 p.m. until landings were completely halted. Departures continued gradually under an updated flight schedule.According to the Airports Authority, the workers’ committee also locked the entrances to airport parking lots, leaving hundreds of vehicles stuck in traffic or parked in improvised spaces along the roadside.The shutdown of check-in services triggered severe congestion across the airport.Senior Transportation Ministry officials said they were investigating whether the disruption amounted to an undeclared work slowdown during the height of the summer travel season.“If the investigation finds that this was indeed an Italian strike, heads will roll and employees will go home,” the officials said, using the Israeli term for a work-to-rule slowdown.“We are investigating the incident. We are at the peak of the travel season, alongside the presence of American refueling crews. If the investigation finds that this was indeed an Italian strike, we will act very harshly against those responsible.”Comments