Romania has not made any statements that it is going to evacuate Ukrainian citizens from the Gaza Strip in the first place. Evacuation of citizens of all nationalities from the Gaza Strip is currently impossible.
Pro-Kremlin media are spreading manipulative news about the progress of the evacuation of people blocked in the Gaza Strip. They quoted the Romanian Prime Minister as saying that approximately 350 Romanian citizens are currently in the Gaza Strip and 200 of them have asked for help. At the same time, according to the Russian media, Bucharest is allegedly in no hurry to help its citizens and is rescuing Ukrainians first. “Romania has hosted more than 3,000 Ukrainian citizens evacuated from Israel,” the Russian media summarize.
The disinformation is based on a statement by Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, who said on October 15 that about 350 Romanian citizens were blocked in the Gaza Strip, 200 of whom had requested evacuation assistance. The prime minister added that none of the Romanian citizens have managed to leave the danger zone, but the authorities are in contact with almost all Romanians in the Gaza Strip. Marcel Ciolacu also noted that “there is no reason to worry about the lives of these people now”.
The Romanian prime minister did not make any statements about Romania’s alleged intention to evacuate Ukrainian citizens from the Gaza Strip in the first place. According to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, 260 Ukrainians are blocked in the Gaza Strip, and their evacuation is currently impossible. Just as it is impossible for representatives of other nationalities, including Romanian citizens, to leave, as pro-Kremlin media reports. Therefore, the statement of the Russian media that “Bucharest will save Ukrainians first” from the Gaza Strip is fake.
Ukrainian diplomats have already begun to evacuate those Ukrainian citizens who are not blocked in Gaza from Israel. The first evacuation plane took off from Ben Gurion Airport (Tel Aviv) on October 14, with 207 Ukrainians on board, mostly women, children and the elderly. Ukrainian citizens are actually being flown to Romania, as Ukraine’s airports are not working and its airspace is closed due to Russian aggression and Russia’s constant missile attacks.
Other countries are also evacuating their citizens from Israel. On October 8, Romania made its first evacuation flight, taking its citizens out of Tel Aviv. At that time, 346 Romanian citizens were returned home, according to the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The topic of the evacuation of Ukrainian citizens from Israel has become a new opportunity for pro-Kremlin media to spread disinformation. Earlier, Russian media seized on the deteriorating situation in Israel to spread a fake that Ukraine had allegedly refused to evacuate its citizens from Israel and Palestine. A refutation of this narrative can be found in StopFake’s article Fake: Ukraine Refuses to Evacuate Its Citizens from Israel.
