Photo/Illutration A South Korean military transport aircraft prepares to leave for Israel to evacuate South Korean nationals on Oct. 13. (Provided by South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense)

Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa on Oct. 15 expressed gratitude to her South Korean counterpart for Seoul’s assistance in evacuating 51 Japanese nationals from Israel as an additional eight arrived in Dubai on a government-chartered flight.

“We agreed that the two countries will continue to help each other and cooperate in efforts to bring the situation back under control at an early date and get their citizens out of Israel,” Kamikawa told reporters after talking with Park Jin over the phone.

As the armed conflict between Israel and its Islamic arch-enemy Hamas ratcheted up, a military transport aircraft dispatched by the South Korean government that picked up 163 South Koreans and 51 Japanese in Tel Aviv arrived at a suburb of Seoul late on Oct. 14.

A flight chartered by the Japanese government took eight more Japanese from Tel Aviv to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates early on Oct. 15.

More than 1,000 Japanese were in Israel and a limited number in Gaza, the Palestinian territory controlled by Hamas, as of Oct. 14, according to Kamikawa.

Kamikawa said she will dispatch Tsukasa Uemura, a government representative and special envoy for Middle East peace, to the region to help coordinate efforts to bring the crisis to an end.

“We are committed to bringing the situation back under control at an early date in cooperation with other countries and the international community,” she said.

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