Israel will begin allowing outbound flights for foreigners who have been stuck in Israel since the conflict with Iran broke out about a week ago, and Israelis, who need to leave the country, starting on Monday.

However, the Transportation Ministry announced late on Thursday that passengers will need to get approval from a government-led exceptions committee.

Since the country’s airspace was closed on June 13 in the wake of the attack on Iran, Israel has looked to put in place repatriation flights to help bring back more than 100,000 Israelis stranded abroad, which started on Wednesday.

At the same time, Israel has barred foreigners or Israeli citizens from leaving the country via air travel, saying that the restrictions are in place to avoid overcrowding and minimize the time planes spend on the ground at Ben Gurion Airport due to security risks, and Home Front Command guidelines limiting the congregation of people. The international airport has been a frequent target of missile attacks.

Legal questions are being raised around the broad government restrictions against flying out of Israel, which challenge the explicit constitutional right to leave and enter the country laid down in Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom, as well as previous High Court rulings determining the right to be fundamental in a democratic country. The Movement for Quality Government demanded that the government explain a cabinet resolution passed on Wednesday that conditions flying out of the country based on approval by a government-led exceptions committee.

According to various reports in the Hebrew press, Israelis interested in leaving the country via air may not need the approval by the exceptions committee on the condition that they will not return to Israel within three weeks after their departure. A Transportation Ministry spokesperson declined to comment on the reports when contacted by The Times of Israel.

The Transportation Ministry established an exceptions committee to review and prioritize humanitarian and medical requests from Israeli citizens who need to return to the country, subject to certain medical and humanitarian criteria.

The same committee is also slated to examine applications by tourists, diplomats, foreign youth and sports groups stranded in the country.

Starting Monday, outbound flights will be operated with half of the planes’ seat capacity. Applications for approval for outgoing flights have not yet been opened since the framework and exact details of the new outbound travel policy have not been finalized. Guidelines are expected to be published at the start of the week.

Once the exemptions committee form for outbound air travel is available, tourists, foreign passport holders, and Israelis may fill it out and submit the form online.

Requests by foreign passport holders, tourists, foreign youth, sports and other groups, stranded in the country, will be prioritized and are expected to be approved with relative ease after they provide relevant documentation of canceled travel details.

Israeli citizens with proof of need for urgent medical treatments outside of Israel, or for certain humanitarian reasons, will also be given priority.

Initially, the committee is poised to reject requests by Israelis who ask to leave the country for vacation or leisure trips.

Once Israel concludes the repatriation of stranded Israelis back home, the need for approval by the exemptions committee is expected to be lifted for outward air travel.

The Movement for Quality Government has expressed concern over the criteria for approval by the committee, and insisted they must be transparent and applied fairly and equally to all those seeking to leave the country.

Dozens of Israeli citizens have turned to legal help, including those who need to leave the country to tend to their businesses abroad, and others whose families and center of life are in a foreign country.

The exceptions committee, chaired by the director-general of the Prime Minister’s Office, Drorit Steinmetz, includes representatives from the Transportation Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, the  Home Front Command, the National Emergency Authority, and the Population and Immigration Authority. Israeli airlines operating repatriation flights to bring Israelis back home have been directed to allocate 15 percent of the seats to humanitarian and urgent medical cases approved by the exceptions committee.

As part of the mission launched Wednesday, Israeli airlines, El Al, Arkia, and Israir began ferrying Israeli citizens from Cyprus, Greece, Italy, other European destinations, and New York, after they were stuck abroad due to the closure of Israeli airspace.

More than 100,000 Israelis were thought to have been abroad. In recent days, more than 50,000 Israelis are estimated to have returned to Israel via air travel, by sea, and via land border crossings, according to the Transportation Ministry.

Some 32,000 tourists and foreign passport holders, meanwhile, are currently stuck in Israel, according to the Tourism Ministry.

El Al is operating 14 repatriation flights to Israel on Friday from various destinations in Europe. Smaller local carrier Israir will return Israelis on six flights from Athens, Larnaca, Batumi, Budapest, Prague, and Palma de Mallorca. Arkia is launching repatriation flights from Paris, Athens, Rome, Larnaca, Vienna, and Montenegro. Around 5,500 Israelis are estimated to have returned home on Friday, up from about 2,700 a day earlier, according to the Transportation Ministry.

“If the security situation allows, and we can continue to expand repatriation flights, we hope to bring back between 6,000 and 7,000 Israelis a day going forward,” Transportation Minister Miri Regev said on Thursday.

Along with the repatriation flights and preparations for limited outgoing departure flights, Israel is also expanding travel options by sea for the return of citizens to the country and the departure of foreigners out of the country.

The first Mano Maritime cruise ship, bringing stranded Israelis back from Cyprus, in coordination with the Transportation Ministry, arrived in Israel on Friday morning. The cruise was guarded by the Israeli Navy’s missile ship.

Some 2,000 passengers were on the luxury ship Crown Iris for its voyage from Limassol in Cyprus to the Ashdod port in southern Israel, the Transportation Ministry said. About 50 buses and minibuses were waiting at the port to take arriving passengers free of charge to the Ashdod train station, and to Beersheba, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem.

The Transportation Ministry emphasized that the maritime space remains open, and repatriation operations are ongoing, subject to the approval of defense officials to maintain the safety of passengers.

“This is a complex logistical operation carried out in full cooperation between all authorities,” said Transportation Ministry director-general Moshe Ben Zaken. “The Mano cruise is the first but not the last one – additional passengers are expected to return this way in the coming days.”

On Monday, June 23, a fully-booked Mano cruise chartered by Bank Leumi will depart from Limassol to bring back about 1,500 Israelis to the Ashdod port. Cruise tickets for Bank Leumi customers were sold for €300, and for non-bank customers, for €600.

On Friday, El Al said it chartered a Mano cruise to offer its customers and the general public stranded abroad an alternative option of returning to Israel from Limassol via the sea.

The cruise voyage, which leaves on Thursday, June 26, with 1,500 people to sail from Limassol to the port of Ashdod, is free of charge to El Al and Sun D’Or customers, whose flights were canceled. One-way ticket prices for the general public were selling for a subsidized €550. El Al said that within a few hours, all 1,500 seats on the cruise were booked.

The Mano cruise will depart for Limassol from the port of Ashdod on June 24, carrying passengers from Israel who purchased tickets. The cruise is expected to arrive at Ashdod port next Friday, June 27.

El Al emphasized that customers who registered for a cruise from Cyprus to Israel will not be eligible to register for repatriation flights. Cruise tickets, booked by El Al and Sun D’Or customers and the general public, have a no-cancellation policy.