Passengers from Tel Aviv arrived on an Israir flight early on Sunday afternoon.
“I am originally from Marrakesh. I’ve come back here around 30 times but this time, the trip has a special flavour, it’s as if it were the first time!” an emotional Pinhas Moyal said from the tarmac, his mask and bag in the colours of the Moroccan flag.
“This is a historic moment, this flight can only strengthen the bridge between Israel and Morocco,” said Benjamin Ron, a tour guide hoping to bring in other Israelis in the future.
Israir spokeswoman Tali Leibovitz said that two to three flights per week were planned on the route.
A second flight, by the Israeli national carrier El Al, landed in Marrakesh later in the day.
El Al said it plans five flights per week to Marrakesh and Casablanca.
At a ceremony sending off the El Al flight attended by Moroccan envoy Abderrahim Beyyoudh, Israel’s Tourism Minister Yoel Razvozov said the service would boost “trade, tourism and economic cooperation between the countries,” according to an El Al statement.
A boost to tourism
After the first flight arrived in Marrakech, the director of the Moroccan national tourism office, Adil Fakir, called it “a crowning moment of the important decision taken by Morocco to resume relations between the two countries.”
Morocco was one of four regional states to agree to normalise ties with Israel last year, along with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan.
The move came as the administration of former US president Donald Trump recognised Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, a disputed and divided former Spanish colony.
The US State Department said on Twitter it was “excited” at Sunday’s El Al flight, calling it “another important development stemming from improved relations between our partners and friends in Israel and Morocco”.
Morocco is home to North Africa’s largest Jewish community, which numbers around 3,000. Some 700,000 Jews of Moroccan origin live in Israel.
“It’s great to return to the land of my ancestors,” said 58-year-old Sophie Levi, originally from Casablanca, who was one of hundreds of people to arrive on Sunday.
“We’re finally breathing again after two years of COVID.”
Some 50,000 to 70,000 tourists annually travelled to Morocco from Israel via third countries before the coronavirus pandemic, many of them of Moroccan origin.
In December last year, a direct flight carrying Israeli officials travelled from Tel Aviv to Rabat, where they signed several bilateral deals, including on air links.
Rabat had a liaison office in Tel Aviv but relations came to a halt during the 2000-2005 second Palestinian intifada, or uprising.
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said last week that he would visit Morocco once direct flights commenced.
