Lebanon: national airline delays Beirut flight arrivals

Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines (MEA) said on Sunday that it had delayed the departures of some incoming flights scheduled to land in Beirut overnight so that they arrive on Monday morning instead, according to Reuters.

The move came after Israel vowed swift retaliation against the Lebanese Hezbollah after 12 children were killed by a rocket in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Saturday, which the occupation state claimed was fired by the movement. Hezbollah has denied responsibility.

Hezbollah and the Israeli military have been trading fire for nearly 10 months in parallel with Israel’s war against the Palestinians in Gaza, which has spread to several regional fronts. Previous exchanges of fire have disrupted flights across the region.

MEA said that six flights scheduled to arrive in Beirut overnight from London, Copenhagen and four other cities in the Middle East would be delayed so that they would instead take off on Monday morning. The airline’s chairman, Mohamad El-Hout, told local broadcaster Al-Jadeed that the flight changes at Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport were due to insurance risks.

“We’re not afraid that the airport will be hit, nor do we have any information in that regard,” he explained. “If we were scared, we wouldn’t have left any flights [operating].” Beirut airport was hit early in the last war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006.

Passengers were still landing at the airport late on Sunday afternoon, according to a Reuters photographer. People were frantically checking indicator boards to see if flights would be cancelled or delayed.

Fears have grown about a full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah amid an exchange of cross-border attacks between the two sides. The escalation comes against the backdrop of a deadly Israeli onslaught on Gaza, which has killed more than 39,300 Palestinians since October, most of them women and children.

READ: Israel bombed 126 shelters in Gaza since 7 October, rights group says