Netanyahu orders planning for brand new airport at Ziklag

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has determined that Israel’s new worldwide airport will probably be constructed at Ziklag within the Negev. The prime minister has instructed that preliminary planning for an airport at Ziklag ought to be prepared inside three months. After planning is full, a call will probably be made on the speed of progress compared with the location at Ramat David within the north, with planning of each airports happening concurrently.

As well as, the prime minister instructed that planning for an airport at Nevatim, additionally within the Negev, which has begun, ought to transfer to the environmental survey stage, that plans ought to be superior for Ramat David, and that the airports ought to come below the Nationwide Infrastructures Regulation, which implies expedited planning.

Ziklag is near Kibbutz Beit Kama within the northern Negev, south of Kiryat Gat, and to Street 6. The realm was examined as a attainable web site for a brand new airport previously, and rejected due to airspace limitations. It overlaps operational flight paths of the Israel Air Drive, near the Gaza Strip border, and is liable to overload Israel’s flight path community. It’s believed, nevertheless, that the protection institution has lately softened its stance, and the matter is once more below assessment.

Aviation trade sources have warned that the location is problematic and will grow to be a white elephant like Ramon Airport close to Eilat, by which billions of shekels have been invested however which isn’t serving its goal. Up to now, the protection institution that Ziklag was too near the Gaza Strip border, however it was lately reported that the Nationwide Safety Council had come to the conclusion that there was no substantial danger.

The prime minister’s choice represents an additional chapter in a protracted working dispute over the situation of an new airport to complement Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport. To date, many of the professionals concerned have really helpful setting up an airport at Ramat David within the Jezreel Valley, however objections from residents and native authorities within the north, and stress from native authorities within the south, which see an airport as an financial lever, led to renewed examination of other prospects within the Negev, at first at Nevatim, east of Beersheva, and now at Ziklag.

In keeping with forecasts by the Israel Airports Authority, by 2040 Ben Gurion Airport will attain most capability, of 40 million passengers yearly. Growth of the airport just isn’t thought-about possible due to restricted airspace. Haifa Airport suffers from limitations on its infrastructure, and it can not deal with the dimensions of plane used on trans-Atlantic flights.

Revealed by Globes, Israel enterprise information – en.globes.co.il – on July 7, 2025.