(new: quotes from returnees in Frankfurt)

BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - The first Germans have returned home on special Lufthansa flights from Israel, which was attacked by Islamist Hamas. The first special plane from Tel Aviv landed at Frankfurt Airport on Thursday evening with 370 passengers. A second plane landed in Munich. More flights were to follow until tomorrow, Friday. Nevertheless, criticism of the organization of the action by the Foreign Office was voiced from the Union.

The first three of four special flights planned for Thursday would have allowed more than 660 German citizens and their families to leave the country, the Foreign Office said. A total of 950 Germans and their families left Israel that day. In addition to the special flights, a ferry to Cyprus was organized as a further option.

Germans who had registered on the precautionary list for crisis information of the Foreign Office 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 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 1000 people per day.

The returned passengers expressed relief after their arrival, and some were met by relatives. Christoph Schaefer from Erbendorf in Bavaria said he was very relieved not to have to expect rocket attacks anymore. He had gone to Israel as a vacationer and should have flown back on Sunday, he said. "Tel Aviv has been spared the biggest impacts," he reported. However, he said, he did notice individual impacts. "A rocket hit an apartment 200 meters from us." There were five people injured, he said.

Schaefer reported problems registering for the return flight. The phone line was always busy, he said. "But after 17 attempts sometime around 5:00 a.m., I finally made it," he said.

Tourist Marlene Knüpfer was also glad to be back in West Germany. "It was already stressful, especially with all the vibrations you felt all the time," she said. In all, she said, there were ten alarms.

A returnee in Frankfurt said, "I hope I don't hear the sirens again for a long time." He had not feared for his life, "but there were 70, 80 attacks, that already wears on the nerves," he said of his time in Jerusalem and northern Israel.

A German student expressed relief at being safe, but seemed depressed at the thought of his two Israeli roommates in Tel Aviv. One of his best friends, he said, had been drafted into the military and was somewhere in southern Israel. "I know I'll keep searching the lists of names of the fallen on the Internet over the next few days."

German Foreign Office organizes departure by ferry

The German Foreign Ministry said that after some airlines had suspended flights, it had ensured that special Lufthansa flights to Israel were now operating again after all. At the same time, it was emphasized that "we are continuing to work on departure options - by plane, by bus, by ship." German citizens 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 paid by the state.

Union politician Hardt: Hotline constantly busy - "Unworthy chaos".

The foreign policy spokesman for the Union faction in the Bundestag, Jürgen Hardt (CDU), criticized the organization of the special flights. He said that the departure of the Germans was progressing only slowly. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) had "tried to outsource the problem of the departure to Lufthansa with as little effort of her own as possible. The result is continuing chaos," Hardt told the German Press Agency. He said it was time for her to "act and make the process a matter for the boss."

His parliamentary group colleague, defense policy spokesman Florian Hahn, said, "The slogan, however, as we as the CDU/CSU parliamentary group have already suggested, would be simple: our air force is and was ready to provide immediate support. Anyone who didn't want to resort to the obvious and correct slogans for ideological reasons is unsuitable for crisis management."

Hardt criticized that the hotline for the few flights was constantly busy, and that people sometimes had phone bills in the clear four-digit range because of hours of cell phone calls from Israel. With regard to the advance payment by means of a credit card number transmitted by telephone, the CDU politician said, "It could hardly be more impractical, especially for school classes, children and old people." In addition, he said, there was apparently no prioritization of people for the flights, although Germans at the location had specially registered in lists of the Foreign Office. "However, the first-come, first-served principle suits business people much more than families with children who can't wait in the hotline continuously and at all times."

Cornelia Mohring, a member of the Bundestag for the Left Party, criticized that eight flights were not nearly enough to fly out all those willing to leave the country. The federal government must do everything in its power "to fly people with German citizenship out of the war zone as quickly as possible," she said.