Airlines cancel flights at Beirut Airport fearing Israeli attack on Lebanon.
Amid escalated tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, flights at Beirut Airport were cancelled or delayed.
Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines (MEA) said disruptions to its schedule were related to insurance risks.
Lufthansa on Monday said it had halted five routes to and from Beirut by the group’s carriers Swiss International Airlines, Eurowings and Lufthansa up to and including July 30 “in an abundance of caution”.
This comes as a rocket attack killed 12 teenagers and children in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Saturday.
Experts are raising concerns that Israel and the Iran-backed group could engage in a full-scale war.
Also read: Lebanon’s Hezbollah says launched rocket barrage at Israel
Meanwhile, Israel’s Security Cabinet on Sunday permitted the government to respond to the attack.
Hezbollah, on the other hand, has rejected any responsibility for the attack, the deadliest in Israel or Israeli-annexed territory since Hamas’s October 7 assault ignited the war on Gaza, which has since spread to several fronts.
At least 10 people have been killed, and more than a dozen wounded, in an attack allegedly from Lebanon on a football pitch in the town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights.
— Hind Khoudary (@Hind_Gaza) July 27, 2024
Beirut airport’s flight information board and flight tracking website Flightradar24 shows Turkish Airlines also cancelled two flights overnight on Sunday.
Turkey-based budget carrier SunExpress, Turkish Airlines subsidiary AJet, Greek carrier Aegean Airlines, Ethiopian Air and MEA have also cancelled flights scheduled to land in Beirut on Monday, Flightradar24 shows.
The airlines did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport is Lebanon’s only airport.
It has been targeted in the country’s civil war and previous fighting with Israel, including in the last war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006.
IRAN 🇮🇷⚡️:
Any Israeli attack on Lebanon will be met with a decisive response from the resistance axis. pic.twitter.com/dQk08zYB96
— Mohammad Holmes 🇮🇷 (@mhmd_akbrzdh) July 27, 2024
MEA said on Sunday it had delayed the departure of some flights set to land in Beirut overnight.
Additional delays to flights landing on Monday were then announced due to “technical reasons related to the distribution of insurance risks for aircraft between Lebanon and other destinations”, MEA said.
The conflict has interrupted flights and shipping across the region, including during reciprocal drone and missile attacks between Israel and Iran in April.
Lufthansa had already suspended night-time flights to and from Beirut for July due to “current developments” in the Middle East.
