Israelis stranded in Morocco due to the coronavirus crisis who were supposed to be brought home on a rescue flight to Israel before Pesach are still trapped there due to a dispute between the Moroccan government in Rabat and the United Arab Emirates, an Army Radio report said on Thursday.

The dispute began after the UAE rescued most of its citizens trapped in Morocco but due to lack of room, left 74 of its citizens behind. The UAE, aware that Israelis were also trapped in the country, offered Israel to send another rescue plane to Morocco that would rescue its remaining citizens as well as Israeli citizens. Israel agreed, especially since El Al is banned from direct flights to Morocco.

However, when Rabat got wind of the plan, they reacted with great anger and refused to allow it to be implemented, viewing it as an insult that Abu Dhabi coordinated with another country instead of directly with them.

Meanwhile, the Israelis are being housed in hotels in the city of Marrakesh at the Moroccan government’s expense and at private homes in the Jewish community in Casablanca.

The Jewish community in Morocco has been hit hard by the coronavirus crisis, with its tiny community accounting for 10% of the country’s fatalities after many of its members attended a large wedding in the coastal city of Agadir with many guests from France and other countries abroad. The guests who attended the wedding then unwittingly spread the virus in the Jewish community in Casablanca during Purim festivities a few days later.

There have been 12 fatalities in the Jewish community in Casablanca including the Chabad shaliach in the city, Harav Shalom Edelman, z’tl, and three relatives of Amir Peretz, the head of the Labor party in Israel.

Harav Edelman passed away during the first days of Pesach at the age of 84 after spending more than 50 years tending to the needs of the Jewish community in Casablanca and throughout Morocco.

Harav Edelman was born in Russia in the 1930s and escaped with his parents to France during World War II. The Lubavitcher Rebbe, z’tl, later sent Rav Edelman to shlichus in Morroco which he embarked on days after his marriage. Since then Rav Edelman and his wife tirelessly fulfilled the needs of the Jewish community, founding a Kollel, training Rabbanim and shochtim in the community, including Hagaon Harav Shlomo Amar, and providing countless other services.

The Chabad house that Harav Edelman and his wife established in Casablanca is the longest-running Chabad house in the world and one of only two in the Arab world (the other one is in Tunis).

The Jewish community numbers about 2,500 to 3,000 people, down from a quarter of a million Jews in 1947 before most Moroccan Jews made aliyah after the founding of the Israeli state, comprising a minute percentage of Morocco’s population of almost 37 million people.

Rabat and Abu Dhabi apparently have a strained relationship since Morroco maintained neutrality in the Gulf Crisis (in 2017) which pitted Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt against Qatar. Although the UAE requested that Rabat side with them against its rival Qatar, Morocco maintained its neutrality.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)