A British Airways plane. Photo: Eduard Marmet.

The European Aviation Safety Agency on Thursday reneged on its recommendation to ban flights in and out of Israel.

The announcement follows the U.S. FAA’s announcement Wednesday evening to lift the ban on airlines flying in and out of Ben Gurion airport. Flights will resume gradually, beginning with Al Italia, Air Berlin and Air Méditerranée. Some Eastern European airlines and British Airways never heeded the ban in the first place.

U.S. and European airlines took the decision to halt flights on Tuesday evening after a rocket landed on a house in Yehud, a town near Ben Gurion airport. Delta Air Lines and United Airlines suspended flights indefinitely as did European carriers, including Germany’s Lufthansa and Air France.

On Thursday a number of Italian flights still arrived at Ovda military airfield in the Negev which had become Israel’s alternative airport for international flights since the ban.