BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - Lufthansa has begun bringing Germans from Israel, which is under attack from Islamist Hamas, to Germany. A first special flight took off Thursday afternoon from Tel Aviv with destination Frankfurt, according to the Foreign Office in Berlin. On board are 372 German nationals, it said. Further flights on behalf of the German Foreign Ministry were to follow in the course of the afternoon and on Friday.

Germans who had registered on the Foreign Office's precautionary list for crisis information had been able to register for the flights. Lufthansa had agreed to offer up to four flights from Tel Aviv on Thursday and Friday. Two each were to go to Frankfurt and Munich. Departure times were scheduled for 1:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. (local time) on both days. The flights were expected to have a total capacity of about 1,000 people per day.

The German Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that after some airlines had suspended the flights, the Foreign Office had ensured that special Lufthansa flights to Israel would now resume after all. At the same time, it stressed, "We continue to work on exit options - by plane, by bus, by ship."

On the platform X (formerly Twitter), the Foreign Office announced that a ferry to Cyprus had also been organized for Thursday afternoon. German nationals had been informed about this via the so-called Elefand system - the ministry's crisis precaution list.

According to a so-called compatriot letter from the German embassy in Israel, a fee of 300 euros per person will be charged for participation in the special flights. The money is to be collected at the time of booking via a Lufthansa hotline on behalf of the German Foreign Ministry. According to dpa information, Lufthansa will charge 550 euros per person, 250 euros will be covered by the state./bk/DP/stk