[1/4] Football fans queue before boarding the first direct commercial flight between Israel and Qatar for the upcoming 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar, at Ben Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv, Israel November 20, 2022.
"There were a few concerns, I cannot deny that," said Sagi Ashkevitz, who was flying out with three friends to his second World Cup.
Those boarding the TUS Airways plane at Ben Gurion Airport had originally been told they would have a brief stopover in Cyprus.
Six more Tel Aviv-Doha flights for the World Cup have been approved so far, Mizrahi said.
Riad Ziadna, a member of Israel's Arab minority who held a soccer ball as he stood in the check-in line, said he believed the World Cup would be "the starter's pistol for coexistence all over the Middle East".