Lufthansa suspends flights to Tel Aviv and extends flight to Beirut
"Given the current situation, the Lufthansa Group is adjusting its service to the Middle East again," the spokesperson stated. Lufthansa includes airlines such as Eurowings, Austrian Airlines, Swiss, and Brussels Airlines. After the deadly rocket attack from Lebanon on a village in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights on Monday, the company and other airlines suspended their flights to Beirut.
Since then, tensions have escalated. On Tuesday, the Israeli army claimed to have killed the top military commander of the Iran-backed and armed Lebanese Hezbollah militia, Fuad Schukr, in Beirut. Fears of the Gaza conflict spreading increased significantly.
On Wednesday, the leader of the radical Palestinian organization Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in Tehran. Iran blamed Israel for the attack. On Thursday, the Israeli army announced that the Hamas military chief, Mohammed Deif, had been killed in an airstrike in the Gaza Strip on July 13.
On Wednesday night, two planes operated by the Lufthansa Group failed to reach Tel Aviv. A Lufthansa flight from Munich returned to its point of departure, while an Austrian Airlines flight was diverted to Sofia in Bulgaria. The company cited the closure of Iranian airspace for four hours as the reason, stating that "the safety of flights to Tel Aviv could not be guaranteed."
The Lufthansa Group initially served multiple destinations in the Middle East, including Beirut. Due to the closure of Iranian airspace for a few hours, two planes operated by the group were affected while attempting to reach Tel Aviv.
