Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided that Israel’s new international airport will be built at Ziklag in the Negev. The prime minister has instructed that initial planning for an airport at Ziklag should be ready within three months. After planning is complete, a decision will be made on the rate of progress in comparison with the site at Ramat David in the north, with planning of both airports taking place simultaneously.
In addition, the prime minister instructed that planning for an airport at Nevatim, also in the Negev, which has begun, should move to the environmental survey stage, that plans should be advanced for Ramat David, and that the airports should come under the National Infrastructures Law, which means expedited planning.
Ziklag is close to Kibbutz Beit Kama in the northern Negev, south of Kiryat Gat, and to Road 6. The area was examined as a possible site for a new airport in the past, and rejected because of airspace limitations. It overlaps operational flight paths of the Israel Air Force, close to the Gaza Strip border, and is liable to overload Israel’s flight path network. It is believed, however, that the defense establishment has recently softened its stance, and the matter is again under review.
Aviation industry sources have warned that the site is problematic and could become a white elephant like Ramon Airport near Eilat, in which billions of shekels were invested but which is not serving its purpose. In the past, the defense establishment that Ziklag was too close to the Gaza Strip border, but it was recently reported that the National Security Council had come to the conclusion that there was no substantial risk.
The prime minister’s decision represents a further chapter in a long running dispute over the location of an new airport to supplement Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport. Up to now, most of the professionals involved have recommended constructing an airport at Ramat David in the Jezreel Valley, but objections from residents and local authorities in the north, and pressure from local authorities in the south, which see an airport as an economic lever, led to renewed examination of alternative possibilities in the Negev, at first at Nevatim, east of Beersheva, and now at Ziklag.
According to forecasts by the Israel Airports Authority, by 2040 Ben Gurion Airport will reach maximum capacity, of 40 million passengers annually. Expansion of the airport is not considered feasible because of limited airspace. Haifa Airport suffers from limitations on its infrastructure, and it cannot handle the size of aircraft used on trans-Atlantic flights.
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on July 7, 2025.
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