Several major international airlines abruptly suspended weekend flights to Israel and other Middle Eastern destinations, citing rising regional tensions, according to reports Friday night.
Channel 12 News reported that Dutch carrier KLM and Air France halted flights to Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, with both airlines attributing the move to escalating instability in the region.
Additional carriers soon followed. i24NEWS reported that Lufthansa and Swiss canceled their Saturday flights to the Middle East, while United Airways and Air Canada also scrapped scheduled flights to Israel.
The sudden wave of cancellations comes amid growing speculation that President Trump may authorize military action against Iran following a deadly crackdown by the regime on anti-government protesters.
KLM had only resumed service to Israel at the end of September, part of a broader return by foreign airlines after earlier hostilities between Iran and Israel subsided.
On Thursday, Trump delivered another forceful message to Tehran while speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One during his return flight from Davos to Washington, pointing to a major U.S. military buildup in the region.
“We have a lot of ships going in that direction, just in case. We have a big flotilla going in that direction. And we’ll see what happens,” Trump said. “We have a big force going toward Iran. I’d rather not see anything happen, but we’re watching them very closely.”
Trump also reiterated his claim that he intervened last week to stop mass executions planned by Iranian authorities.
“I stopped 837 hangings [last] Thursday. They would have been dead. Every one of them would have been hung. This is like from a thousand years ago,” he said.
“I said ‘if you hang those people, you’re going to be hit harder than you’ve ever been hit. It’ll make what we did to your Iran nuclear look like peanuts.’ And an hour before this horrible thing was going to take place, they canceled it. And they actually said they canceled it. They didn’t postpone it. They canceled it. So that was a good sign.”
Despite pointing to that outcome, Trump stressed that the United States continues to prepare militarily.
“But we have an armada, we have a massive fleet heading in that direction. And maybe we won’t have to use it. We’ll see.”
Speaking earlier this week in an interview with CNBC, Trump addressed the deteriorating situation in Iran and said Washington remains on alert.
“We hope there’s not going to be further action. They were shooting people indiscriminately on the streets and they were going to hang 837, mostly young people,” he said, referring to his warning that the U.S. would respond forcefully if protesters were harmed.
{Matzav.com}
What a bunch of anti semitic wussies.
Who can blame the airlines for not wanting to fly to Israel, after all Israel is in the Middle East and they can be stuck in Israel for who knows how long.