Airports close across the Mideast as the Israel-Iran conflict shutters the region's airspace
He fled to Tehran after the strike Sunday, but no taxi would take him to the border as the conflict between Iran and Israel intensified.
'Flights, markets, everything is closed, and I am living in the basement of a small hotel,' Hussein told The Associated Press by cellphone on Monday. "I am trying to get to the border by taxi, but they are hard to find, and no one is taking us.'
Israel launched a major attack Friday with strikes in the Iranian capital of Tehran and elsewhere, killing senior military officials, nuclear scientists, and destroying critical infrastructure. Among the targets was a nuclear enrichment facility about 18 miles from Qom. Iran has retaliated with hundreds of drones and missiles.
The dayslong attacks between the two bitter enemies have opened a new chapter in their turbulent recent history. Many in the region fear a wider conflict as they watch waves of attacks across their skies every night.
The conflict has forced most countries in the Middle East to close their airspace. Dozens of airports have stopped all flights or severely reduced operations, leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded and others unable to flee the conflict or travel home.
Airport closures create 'massive' domino, tens of thousands stranded
'The domino effect here is massive,' said retired pilot and aviation safety expert John Cox, who said the disruptions will have a huge price tag.
'You've got thousands of passengers suddenly that are not where they're supposed to be, crews that are not where they are supposed to be, airplanes that are not where they're supposed to be,' he said.
Zvika Berg was on an El Al flight to Israel from New York when an unexpected message came from the pilot as they began their descent: 'Sorry, we've been rerouted to Larnaca.' The 50-year-old Berg saw other Israel-bound El Al flights from Berlin and elsewhere landing at the airport in Cyprus. Now he's waiting at a Larnaca hotel while speaking to his wife in Jerusalem. 'I'm debating what to do,' Berg said.
Israel has closed its main international Ben Gurion Airport 'until further notice,' leaving more than 50,000 Israeli travelers stranded abroad. The jets of the country's three airlines have been moved to Larnaca.
In Israel, Mahala Finkleman was stuck in a Tel Aviv hotel after her Air Canada flight was canceled, trying to reassure her worried family back home while she shelters in the hotel's underground bunker during waves of overnight Iranian attacks.
'We hear the booms. Sometimes there's shaking,' she said. 'The truth, I think it's even scarier … to see from TV what happened above our heads while we were underneath in a bomb shelter.'
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office warned Israelis not to flee the country through any of the three crossings with Jordan and Egypt that are open to the Israeli public. Despite having diplomatic ties with Israel, the statement said those countries are considered a 'high risk of threat' to Israeli travelers.
Iran on Friday suspended flights to and from the country's main Khomeini International Airport on the outskirts of Tehran. Israel said Saturday that it bombed Mehrabad Airport in an early attack, a facility in Tehran for Iran's air force and domestic commercial flights.
Many students unable to leave Iran, Iraq and elsewhere
Arsalan Ahmed is one of thousands of Indian university students stuck in Iran, with no way out. The medical student and other students in Tehran are not leaving the hostels where they live, horrified by the attacks with no idea of when they'll find safety.
'It is very scary what we watch on television,' Ahmed said. 'But scarier are some of the deafening explosions.' Universities have helped relocate many students to safer places in Iran, but the Indian government has not yet issued an evacuation plan for them.
Though airspace is still partially open in Lebanon and Jordan, the situation is chaotic at airports, with many passengers stranded locally and abroad with delayed and canceled flights even as the busy summer tourism season begins. Many airlines have reduced flights or stopped them altogether, and authorities have closed airports overnight when attacks are at their most intense. Syria, under new leadership, had just renovated its battered airports and begun restoring diplomatic ties when the conflict began.
Neighboring Iraq's airports have all closed due to its close proximity to Iran. Israel reportedly used Iraqi airspace, in part, to launch its strikes on Iran, while Iranian drones and missiles flying the other way have been downed over Iraq. Baghdad has reached a deal with Turkey that would allow Iraqis abroad to travel to Turkey — if they can afford it — and return home overland through their shared border.
Some Iraqis stranded in Iran opted to leave by land. College student Yahia al-Suraifi was studying in the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz, where Israel bombed the airport and an oil refinery over the weekend.
Al-Suraifi and dozens of other Iraqi students pooled together their money to pay taxi drivers to drive 200 miles (320 kilometers) overnight to the border with northern Iraq with drones and airstrikes around them.
'It looked like fireworks in the night sky,' al-Suraifi said. 'I was very scared.'
By the time they reached the northern Iraqi city of Irbil, it was another 440 miles (710 kilometers) to get to his hometown of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq.
Back in Tehran, Hussein said the conflict brought back bitter memories of 20 years of war back home in Afghanistan.
'This is the second time I have been trapped in such a difficult war and situation," he said, "once in Kabul and now in Iran.'
—
Abdul-Zahra reported from Baghdad. Associated Press journalists Riazat Butt in Islamabad, Moshe Edri in Tel Aviv, Israel; Aijaz Hussain Srinagar, India; Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, and Adam Suderman in Richmond, Virginia, contributed to this report.
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The Independent
22 minutes ago
- The Independent
The state-sponsored killing of journalists is another way to limit freedom of speech
The life of journalist Anas al-Sharif is worth no more and no less than any other life lost during the war in Gaza, or in the terrorist atrocities, perpetrated by Hamas, that preceded it. But his targeted killing – alongside that of the four other Al Jazeera staff members who died with him – does raise further significant questions about the way in which Israel has conducted the war. That an accredited journalist who worked for Al Jazeera (and previously for Reuters) was specifically targeted by the Israel Defense Forces is a development that can only be looked upon with a degree of horror. His death was not the kind of inevitable collateral damage that can take place in any war; for want of a better word, Sharif was the subject of a state-sponsored assassination. The Israeli authorities say he was a terrorist, belonged to Hamas, and served as the leader of a cell. They've produced some documentary evidence, but this has not impressed the independent observers who've examined it, and it raises the question of why, if it was so compelling, it was not released sooner. It certainly does not give any lawful reason for his killing, still less that of his Al Jazeera colleagues – correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, cameramen Moamen Aliwa and Ibrahim Zaher, and their assistant Mohammed Noufal – none of whom has been claimed by the Israelis to have had any links to Hamas. Truth, as the old cliche goes, is the first casualty of war, and the fact is that Israel – unusually – has banned international journalists from covering the conflict. The Israeli authorities say it is not safe to do so, a grim irony given Sharif's fate. That, though, is not a matter for them to judge: it is one that should be left to the many news organisations, including The Independent, that have proudly dispatched brave journalists into even more hazardous environments over the course of many decades. Moreover, the Israeli policy has meant that the actions of the Israel Defense Forces cannot be independently monitored and reported on in the traditional manner. The images captured during recent aid flights and first reported by The Independent, of a moonscape where once were bustling neighbourhoods and olive groves, have, alongside the reportage of Sharif and his colleagues, given the world some idea of the disproportionate way in which Israel has acted. The result is that Israel stands accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court, and the term 'genocide' is increasingly being used in connection with the denial of food and medicines to the people of Gaza. Absent the full measure of international scrutiny, journalists from Gaza itself have had to take on the responsibility of providing this essential function. They have willingly placed themselves in the line of fire to tell the world about the destruction of the Gaza Strip, and its human cost; to assess the extent of terrorist activity; and to draw attention to the plight of the hostages still cruelly held by Hamas. Wearing 'PRESS' flak jackets and helmets, they should have received the normal protections afforded to all journalists, and they might well have if they'd been, say, American or Saudi. The vast majority of the 232 or so journalists who have died in the war in Gaza have been Palestinian – a statistic that almost speaks for itself. According to the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs' Costs of War project, more journalists have been killed in Gaza than in both world wars, the Vietnam war, the wars in Yugoslavia, and the United States' war in Afghanistan combined. As the exiled Palestinian writer Ahmed Najad has written in this newspaper, the death of Sharif is an attack on truth itself – and such attacks on freedom of speech and thought are sadly not confined to war zones. The arrest of hundreds of passive, peaceful protesters in London over the weekend shows how the effects of the war in Gaza, and the bitter arguments surrounding it, have spread across the world – or at least, to those parts where dissent is still possible and the press remains relatively uncontrolled by the state. It may well be the case, as ministers darkly hint, that Palestine Action is intent on carrying out activities that its supporters do not know about, but that still does not justify detaining elderly people whose only crime is to hold up a piece of cardboard with a message on it and exercise their right to free expression. A nation that seeks the support of its allies the world over will not succeed in drawing others to its cause by denying international reporters – and indeed, other countries' governments, and citizens – access to the truth. If Israel feels its actions are justified, then it must allow proper scrutiny of them, including coverage of the war it seems intent on perpetrating. The killing of journalists will never elicit anything other than shock from the international community. Benjamin Netanyahu would do well to remember this.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Gary Lineker and Mo Salah's ‘we can't hear you' hypocrisy is plain to see
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Strictly speaking, there was no need for anybody in Nyon to address the issue publicly, given Palestine's affiliation to the Asian confederation, outside Uefa's jurisdiction. But Aleksander Ceferin, pathologically averse to anything that could be construed as political, still offered a lavish tribute, reflecting in a statement attributed to the president: 'His talent and dedication gave the children of Gaza and beyond hope in a brighter tomorrow.' In stark contrast, the murder at the Nova music festival of Lior Asulin, a striker who played at the highest level in his home country for Hapoel Tel Aviv and Beitar Jerusalem, passed entirely without Uefa comment 22 months ago, despite Israel falling within its orbit. Asulin even competed in its own competition, turning out six times in 2007 for Hapoel in the Uefa Cup. 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For a start, we will perhaps never know the definitive version of his death: where the PFA has said he was killed by Israel while waiting at an aid distribution point, the Israel Defence Forces have denied this, with spokesman Nadav Shoshani telling Salah: 'We found no records of any incidents. In order to take a closer look, we need more details.' From the vantage point of Lineker et al, Uefa's selective testimony on Al-Obeid is cast as a damning indictment ofindifference to the Palestinians' suffering. But you cannot be taken seriously as a paragon of virtue if your application of morality is so one-sided that you fail to address an Israeli footballer's murder, or even the massacre of Jews that precipitated this entire conflagration. That is not altruism, it is activism.
Sky News
an hour ago
- Sky News
Funeral held for five Al Jazeera journalists killed in Israeli strike in Gaza
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