After years of talks, Israel is set to establish an international airport in southern Israel, in a major economic boost for the Negev region, the government announced on Thursday.
The new airport, which will be located in the area of the Ziklag archaeological site, about 17 miles northwest of Beersheva between the cities of Netivot and Rahat, is expected to be formally approved by the Cabinet on Sunday, a joint statement by the Prime Minister’s Office, Transport Ministry, and Finance Ministry said.
The site, which is in the area infiltrated by Hamas-led terrorists during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, is slightly west of a location previously under consideration at Moshav Nevatim.
“The establishment of a supplementary international airport is a national necessity in light of the continued growth in the number of passengers traveling to and from Israel,” the government said in a statement. “The decision to build the first airport in the south is significant news for Israel’s aviation sector and even greater news for the entire Negev.”
Construction of the airport, which is expected to take a decade, “will create thousands of new jobs, strengthen the local economy, and is part of an expanded process the government is leading to reduce gaps and effectively end the concept of the periphery,” the statement continued.
The future airport is intended to alleviate congestion at Israel’s main international gateway, Ben-Gurion International Airport, approximately 55 miles, or an hour’s drive, away.
Ben-Gurion Airport, centrally located east of Tel Aviv, has an annual passenger capacity of 40 million.
Some 24 million passengers traveled through the airport in the record-breaking year for tourism in Israel in 2019, including more than 4.5 million tourists.
“This is a historic decision that strengthens Israel’s skies, the economy, and the Negev,” Transport Minister Miri Regev said. “A complementary international airport in the south is a powerful growth engine that will generate employment, open new opportunities, and connect the Negev to Israel’s centers of activity and to the world.”
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the airport’s establishment “connects security resilience with economic growth and between developing advanced infrastructure, strengthening the periphery in practice.”
Some Israeli travel experts have questioned the feasibility of the project due to its location.
“I don’t mean to be snide, but what incoming tourist will want to fly into Beersheva and then travel up to Jerusalem or Tel Aviv or down to Eilat,” Mark Feldman, CEO of Ziontours, told JNS when the plan was being deliberated last year.
Israel opened Ramon Airport near the Red Sea resort city of Eilat in 2019, with an initial capacity of two million passengers per year, but it has failed to gain traction with flyers.
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