Georgia’s consul in Israel warns citizens of Georgia
By Nika Gamtsemlidze
Tuesday, May 7
More than 600 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza beginning Saturday morning, prompting Israel to retaliate with airstrikes.
As Israel pounded Gaza with airstrikes, the Palestinian death toll rose to 23, including two pregnant women and two babies. In Israel, 4 people died as rockets landed on the south part of Israel.
Palestinian officials say a ceasefire agreement has been reached with Israel to end a surge of violence in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel. No Israeli air raids have been reported since the deal came into effect.
Georgia’s Council in Israel has released a special letter to citizens of Georgia, saying “Hotline is working in the Embassy, we have a continuous connection with the authorities and, as of today, we have not received any information regarding Georgian victims."
“We received few calls, but most of them were asking about the protocol in these situations, which is already written on our website,” said Aleko Jishkariani, consul of Georgia in Israel.
As Jishkariani noted, there has not been this kind of escalation since 2014, “There always was some tension around the Gaza Strip, but this kind of escalation is first since 2014. It is very hard to say anything at this point, 4 people died in Israel, about 80 are injured and 2000 people have to stay in shelters,” noted the consul.
Jishkariani also talked about the situation in other parts of Israel, saying that “every airport works smoothly, the country continues to live an ordinary life.”
Eurovision song contest is set to take place in Tel Aviv starting from May 14.
It was made public that the Eurovision ticket sales went down after the escalation. According to the organizers of the song contest in Tel Aviv, it’s business as usual, but only 5,000 tourists are expected to arrive in Israel, which is a modest number compared to competitions held in other countries, as well as early predictions of tens of thousands of tourists that were to visit Israel.
