Critical situation of Eilat port after 9 months of Israel's war on Gaza

Eilat Port Board Chairman Avi Hormero called on the Israeli government to provide financial assistance to the port, threatening to fire half of its workers, due to the disruption of its facilities for 8 months.

Hormero, chairman and co-owner of the Eilat Port, said in a letter to Israeli Transport Minister Miri Regev, asking her to provide financial assistance, that the Eilat Port is facing a “critical situation” due to its being out of service for months due to the war on Gaza.

The port administration threatens to dismiss approximately 50-60 workers out of 120 working in the port if financial assistance is not provided by the Israeli government, due to the disruption of work in it for 8 months following the start of Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea.

In his letter, Hormero demanded an urgent meeting with Regev about the situation in the port, and wrote that “the port of Eilat has been out of service for 8 months due to the ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’ and the closure of the Bab al-Mandab Strait.”

He added: "My partners and I, as owners of the company, bear the burden of the huge expenses in order to continue the ongoing maintenance of the port and pay the wages of the workers during the last 8 months."

 He continued: "I believe that no commercial company can withstand a challenge like the one we are facing at the present stage."

He added: "During the spread of the Corona virus, and following the threat of companies to send their workers on unpaid leave, Israel paid millions to companies, while we, who constitute a national infrastructure and the Israeli governments declared the port of Eilat to be a national strategic resource for Israel, do not receive the required aid."

He continued: "In light of the above, we have no choice but to start dismissing about 50-60 workers, so that only the necessary workers remain in the port," calling on Regev to intervene quickly and find a solution before starting to dismiss the workers.

Last March, the port of Eilat announced that it would lay off two workers, but it did not do so, while the Knesset Economics Committee threatened at the time to nationalize the port if workers were laid off.

It is noteworthy that the port of Eilat was the main port for importing cars to Israel before the war, as about 150 thousand cars arrived there last year, but no cars have arrived there since the beginning of this year.