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PALESTINE

Spanish airlines suspend Tel Aviv flights

Spain's flagship carrier Iberia cancelled its Tuesday night flight to the Israel capital of Tel Aviv as a preventative measure due to the worsening security situation in the region, while low-cost carrier Vueling is also avoiding the zone.

Published: 23 July 2014 08:56 CEST

The airlines will watch events in the region before deciding whether to restart flights to the city.

Iberia and Vueling pulled the plug on their Tel Aviv flights after American airlines, US Airways and United Airlines had taken similar action, Spain's ABC newspaper reported.

American aviation authorities have barred its airlines from flying to and from Israel for at least 24 hours.

Other airlines to stop service include Germany's Lufthansa, Air Berlin, Air France, Swiss and German Wings.

Europe's air safety watchdog said it would recommend that all European airlines avoid Tel Aviv after a rocket fired from Gaza landed some 17km (10.5 miles) from Ben Gourion airport in Tel Aviv.

The European Aviation Safety Agency told news agency AFP it would issue a "strong recommendation to avoid until further notice Tel Aviv Ben Gurion International Airport."  

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ISRAEL

Germany’s Chancellor Merkel warns on anti-Semitism ahead of Gaza protests

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday warned against any show of anti-Semitic or racist behaviour ahead of expected weekend pro-Palestinian rallies in the wake of days of fighting in the Middle East.

Published: 22 May 2021 15:55 CEST
Updated: 23 May 2021 10:15 CEST
Germany's Chancellor Merkel warns on anti-Semitism ahead of Gaza protests
German Chancellor Angela Merkel attends a press conference in the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, on May 21st, 2021. Michael Sohn / POOL / AFP

Several German cities saw pro-Palestinian demonstrations during the deadly 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist movement which controls the Gaza Strip, prompting Merkel to issue a call for calm.

READ ALSO: Germany slams ‘anti-Semitic’ demos and Hamas ‘terrorist attacks’

“Those who bear hatred towards Jews in the street, those who incite racial hatred put themselves outside our Basic Law,” Merkel declared in her weekly podcast.
 
“Such acts must be punished severely,” she insisted.

Merkel noted that Germany’s constitution “guarantees the right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. But it offers no place for attacks on people of a different confession, no place for violence, racism or denigration” of others and their beliefs.
 
German police made some 60 arrests last Saturday while some 100 officers were hurt as a pro-Palestinian rally in Berlin turned violent.

Some participants at marches in towns across Germany shouted anti-Semitic slogans, which Merkel blasted as “unacceptable”. Others burned Israeli flags
and, in one case, stoned the entrance to a synagogue.

More demonstrations in support of the Palestinians were scheduled for this weekend, in Berlin and in other cities.

On Saturday, a Jew from Berlin filed a complaint to say he had been attacked overnight by three unidentified men, police said.

The 41-year-old man, who was wearing a kippa at the time, said he was first insulted, then hit in the face, before his attackers fled the scene.

The authorities in Germany are worried about a resurgence of anti-Semitism from the far-right, notably since the October 2019 attempted attack against a
synagogue in the eastern city of Halle carried out by neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers.

The growing Jewish community in Germany numbers in the hundreds of thousands, many of them from the former Soviet Union.

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