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Evacuation flights for British citizens trapped in Israel could begin “within hours”, a senior minister has said. Israeli airspace is currently closed due to the ongoing war with Iran.

But Jonathan Reynolds said the government is holding emergency talks with the Israeli authorities to provide charter planes out of Tel Aviv airport. There are understood to be up to 60,000 British citizens living in the country. The Business Secretary told Sky News: “We are looking at chartering aircraft to get people out.

“That’s not possible at the minute from Israel, because their air space, of course, is closed.”

Asked if the flights would begin “today, tomorrow or imminently”, he said: “I believe our intention would be to do that as soon as possible next week.

“Yes, hours, not days.”

He added that emergency evacuations could be carried out overland.

Mr Reynolds said: “As well as that, if people are able to travel across land, we have rapid response teams on the Jordanian and the Egyptian borders, if people are traveling across land to countries where they could feasibly fly out on commercial aircraft.

“There have been extensive preparations both in the region, and within the government, numerous Cobra meetings I’ve been involved in, some of those because of how dangerous the situation is.

“But I want people to have some reassurance that we’ve been preparing for all of these eventualities, though I know it will be just concerning this morning.”