First Spanish military plane arrives in Madrid with people evacuated from Israel

The first Spanish air force plane with more than 200 people evacuated from Israel landed early this Wednesday morning (11 October) at the Torrejón de Ardoz air base in Madrid. Meanwhile a second plane has already taken off for the Israeli city of Tel Aviv to repatriate the remaining Spanish nationals.

More than 200 Spaniards, citizens of the European Union and third countries residing in Spain were aboard the A330 aircraft Spain's Ministry of Defence announced on social media network X..

The Ministry also said that, at around 7am, a second military plane left the Torrejón air base for Tel Aviv, on which the rest of the Spaniards who have had their commercial flights cancelled due to the conflict in Israel, following the attack by the Islamist movement Hamas last weekend, will be evacuated.

In a statement on X, the acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, also confirmed the take-off of the second plane and underlined the collaboration with the Ministry of Defence to ensure that the operation to bring the Spaniards who could not leave Israel "is a success".