Delta Air Lines and United Airlines will suspend service to Tel Aviv, effective tomorrow after Iran promised imminent revenge for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday.
Delta And United Suspend Service To Isreal After Haniyeh Assassination
On Wednesday morning Ismail Haniyeh, the exiled leader of Hamas, was killed by a missile attack at an Iranian state guesthouse where he was staying. Haniyeh was in Tehran for the swearing-in of Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian.
While Israel has not claimed responsibility, the Islamic Republic has vowed swift and lethal retribution against Israel for the deeply embarrassing assassination. Hezbollah has also promised revenge. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has “ordered the Iranian Armed Forces to launch a direct strike against Israel.”
To hedge against uncertainty (and perhaps insurance concerns), both Delta and United are suspending air service to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport (TLV). Both UA85 and UA91 left Tel Aviv yesterday for Newark (EWR), with the latter flight carrying all remaining crew, including those who operated the outbound segment hours earlier.
The suspensions are open-ended, though Delta says it will last at least through August 2, 2024. United placed no date on when it would resume service:
“We continue to closely monitor the situation and will make decisions on resuming service with a focus on the safety of our customers and crews.”
El-Al will continue all service to Israel…in fact, if these suspensions go longer, it would not surprise me if the carrier brought back its Shabbat service.
> Read More: As Bombed Syrian Airports Shut Down, El Al Will Fly On Sabbath
CONCLUSION
With the landing of UA91 about an hour ago, United and Delta will pause service to Israel for at least the next several days.
There’s no telling what will happen to the $4 billion fortune Haniyeh skimmed from the Palestinian people over the years, but I hope his family is banished from Qatar and his corpse is defecated on by the widows and orphans of Gaza.
As for Haniyeh, if hell is a literal burning lake of fire, it would be just for him to be consumed in it for all of eternity for the death and destruction he has personally visited on Palestinians and Israelis through his barbaric lust for power and wealth. Let other terrorist pigs know that you are not safe, wherever you are hiding…
image: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader
Zero chance El Al brings back Shabbat flights. They had two flights on Shabbat in October to bring stranded Israelis back home, but that was a one off. They are dependent on religious passengers who will boycott them if they fly on Saturday.
As it ought to be . It is always best to respect religious teachings , which are wise .
“it would be just for him to be consumed in it for all of eternity for the death and destruction he has personally visited on Palestinians and Israelis through his barbaric lust for power and wealth”
I guess he’ll eb saying hello then to guys like Ariel Sharon while saving seats for Netanyahu and his ilk?
Thank God we have the greatest foreign policy President ever currently in the White House.
Who knows how much worse this could be…
I predict that more bad ones will suddenly hear a loud noise .
Because fortunately Israel has a government which carries a big stick .
Anyone being supported that much and unconditionally by the US would.
Like the grifting comedian in soon to be the Russian state of Ukraine?
@Aaron … No , that is not the reason why Israel is capable of carrying a big stick . The reason is because the Israelis are more clever and than their enemies .
Israel should be supported by the US.
Unfortunately, we don’t have any actual leadership in the WH right now to manage the situation.
Is it any surprise that Bibi meets with The Veep and then immediately starts killing high value targets deep in enemy territory?
He knows that the US media and other nefarious operatives are working hard to get Kamala elected and he knows that she’s less than useless.
Which leaves him no choice but to hit and hit hard.
@Alert
Yeah, nothing to do with the billions they get in support from the US for weapons, logistics, support, etc, or the various vetoes on UN resolutions, etc. Yeah, nothing to do with that at all…
@Dave Edwards
Ukraine has only gotten a fraction of the support that Israel gets…and the US has been supporting Israel this way for decades.
@JH
Kamala is pretty much as pro-Israel as Trump or Biden, which means she’ll basically let them keep doing what they are doing while still providing weapons and aid.
Honestly. AIPAC’s buying, er, lobbying of the US government is a really good ROI for them.
@Aaron … the mettle and clever thinking of the soldier on the ground decides the outcome . We had an outstanding example in Billy Waugh , who was with Special Forces and also tracked some bad guys in the middle east . Hardwear can never replace a Billy Waugh , and fortunately Israel and the U.S. have many more Billy Waughs than the bad guys .
Exactly. It’s so much easier for rogue government players to behave like rogues around their home and abroad when they feel like they have impunity with basically unconditional backing of the world’s most powerful shield and sword that is the US Government. What is interesting is how more and more of the “Israel can do no wrong” crowd tries to cut off backing for Ukraine against the dangerous expansionist power that is Putin’s Russia all while giving Netanyahu carte blanche despite the increased danger Netanyahu’s rogue operations pose to American interests.
In the short-term, the rogue Netanyahu regime is sacrificing the October 7th hostages in a macabre dance with Hamas and wants to drag out this conflict long enough that he ends up escaping Israeli and international justice for his criminal wrongdoings. Strategically, Netanyahu and the other Likudnik fellow travelers are a long-term strategic loser for Israel’s security, as no amount of anti-projectile and WMD-tracking technologies now or on the horizon is going to guarantee protection against the quasi-democratization of WMDs.
@Alert
Nah, it’s still the weapons, since most of what Israel is doing is bombing and bombing and snipering and bombing the heck out mostly civilians.
Indeed. Zelensky can only dream that he had the kind of US backing against Russia that Israel gets even while the rogue Netanyahu gets rewarded by the US even as he deliberately tries to bait the US into a war against Iran and tie down the US into direct hostilities against Iran before the next Administration comes into being.
We used to hear all this talk about the mad dog mullahs of Iran, but the mad dog is Netanyahu’s Israel which is deliberately trying to drag the US into a hotter conflict against Iran even as such conflict is fundamentally against American national interests and is destabilizing in the region and beyond. In this context, who can blame airlines for reducing flights to Israel.
@Alert . That big stick Israel is carrying is billions of dollars in US help.
@Maryland … True ( regarding hardware ) .
And the brave men and women fighting to rescue kidnapped hostages are Israeli human persons . Moshe Dayan was an epitome of a brave man ( at night ) , keeping the civilians safe ( whilst they sleep ) . We can be sure that brave men on the ground identified the location of the bad guy in Iran , before the bad guy heard a loud noise .
Also , our own Billy Waugh was an epitome of a brave man protecting us . Israel and the U.S. fortunately have many Billy Waughs .
The Biden Admin’s foreign policy has been very effective in living up to what it wanted to deliver. It’s been a huge success by that benchmark.
Now the Biden Admin is also getting out the highest-profile Americans whom Trump’s buddy Putin has been detaining on the shadiest of grounds.
He wasn’t killed, he was sent on his way to get his 72 virgins.
A large proportion of Haniyeh‘s descendants were already killed in Gaza — it may even be the majority of them were already killed in Gaza.
Of the non-war zone places where he may have any remaining descendants or other close relatives, those places are unlikely to kick them out because there are legal, cultural and power projection practices in play that make it more contentious to do so than just ignoring them unless and until they become a public nuisance.
Netanyahu’s probably hoping that Haniyeh‘s successor is more old school Hamas: less into cozying with Iran and more into cozying up with Likudniks, the Egyptians, the Saudis and Emiratis.
@Aaron:
“Kamala is pretty much as pro-Israel as Trump or Biden, which means she’ll basically let them keep doing what they are doing while still providing weapons and aid.
Honestly. AIPAC’s buying, er, lobbying of the US government is a really good ROI for them.”
Is that why her administration gave Iran access to billions of dollars?
She’s trying to play both sides of this war (Arabs in Michigan, Jews nationally) when there is clearly one problem and one problem only…Hamas.
Unless you are committed to the complete destruction of Hamas then you’re committed to the same old, same old.
“Is that why her administration gave Iran access to billions of dollars?”
And if she ever had to make a choice between Iran and Israel, you know who she would choose.
“She’s trying to play both sides of this war (Arabs in Michigan, Jews nationally) when there is clearly one problem and one problem only…Hamas.”
No, the problem is the occupation. Hamas wouldn’t (and didn’t) exist without Israel.
“Unless you are committed to the complete destruction of Hamas then you’re committed to the same old, same old.”
No, the pre-Oct 7th occupation status quo is committing the same old, same old.
Arafat rejected a two state solution in 2000 because he would have lost access to billions in aid money.
It’s how he became a billionaire himself.
Then, in 2006, the peace loving Palestinians voted in a terrorist group to run Gaza.
The same terrorist group which is still supported by 70% of the population today.
Stop being a terrorist sympathizer and enabler.
The “two state solution in 2000” offered to Arafat during the Clinton Admin was a bad joke from a guy longing for a Nobel Peace Prize. Arafat was offered sliced and diced sections of Israeli-occupied war booty territory as part and parcel of a revocable “pathway” to possible statehood if meeting a bunch of conditions ultimately left to be judged by Israel. And who was going to guarantee that Israel delivered to any such agreement? Certainly not a US that has been supporting or providing cover for Israeli war crimes and other Israeli violations of international law since before you knew about email.
Follow the money.
Did you know that the guy killed in Tehran was worth $4 billion dollars?
What good or service did he provide that would earn him such a fortune?
(Hint…he stole it. All of it.)
Netanyahu has long been a problem for the US. And he’s definitely no ally of the US. Netanyahu is a partisan politician always meddling in US internal affairs and consistently batting for the Republicans and against the Democrats.
Netenyahu is willing to burn the whole region and have the US pick up the tab for it in order to avoid going to jail.
Burning the whole region is seen as good for the fans of the Rabbi Meir Kahane terrorist movement: when all the surrounding states are basket cases, the Israeli government’s seizure of war booty in the form of territory is less likely to be effectively challenged and reversed and so Israeli settlers can have more living room in more occupied territory regardless of what it does to “the others”.
Free Palestine.
Ukraine and Israel are not real nations.
Israel now a real nation
Go F yourself, you terrorist pig!
*not a real nation?
No nation is a real nation until it becomes one and is recognized as such. The state of Israel is a real country and recognized as such since before most of the people reading this were born. And even your fellow Putin’s favorite white supremacists from the 1990s had recognized both Ukraine and Israel as real nations.
*This*
If we want to get technical, they’re all nations. As is Kosovo. Where the debate lies is whether or not they’re independent states. That’s indisputable for Ukraine and Israel. There is some dispute for Palestine, and Kosovo, and to a degree the PRC.
0% chance of restarting flying on Shabbat.
When they flew in October it was to bring back soldiers who were abroad, as Jewish law requires in a matter of life and death one may fly on the Sabbath.
The majority stake ownership of ELAL, is owned by a observant religious Jewish businessman, who wouldn’t put the company in jeopardy by flying on Sabbath
@Israeli Traveler … +1 . Thank you .
It isn’t lost on me that anytime Israel faces domestic turmoil and international scrutiny (this time, civilians and lawmakers breaking into a military base in support of IDF soldiers who were being detained for raping Palestinian prisoners), Israel deflects attention through wreaking havoc and destruction on civilian targets and through extrajudicial killings that violate the sovereignty of other nations. The cycle is so predictable at this point.
Also worth remembering that Hamas is both a political party and militia, and that Haniyeh was the exiled leader of the political branch of the movement, which was leading the negotiation efforts. Assassinating the lead negotiator demonstrates Netanyahu and Israel are not engaging in ceasefire negotiations and an agreement to exchange hostages in good faith. Netanyahu obviously has a personal political incentive to sabotage any efforts to bring the war to a close lest he face the legal and electoral consequences of his failures and corruption.
The IDF has soldiers who have been sodomizing even some Palestinian minors during captivity. Some of the IDF soldiers found this out and were disgusted by it and let some others get clued in on the wrongdoings like that but they are afraid for their lives too. And as we saw with the Hilltop “price tag” crowd and the far-right Judaist politicians, they want to protect the government-paid sodomizers of Palestinian detainees.
Nothing to do with internal turmoil.
The bomb has been waiting in place for 2 months. Haniyeh’s verdict was signed on October 7th.
The timing just a matter of opportunity.
And ceasefire negotiations mean there’s no ceasefire yet. Currently it’s all out war. If Hamas wants fire to cease, they should accept the offered ceasefire, not negotiate endlessly.
The problem with negotiations is simple – Hamas’s goal is to stay in power so they can recover and attack Israel again. 100% of the disagreement is around demands that would enable this (e.g. allow return of armed militants to Gaza city). Israel is not so keen to buy temporary peace and watch the next attack form.
And the Israeli right wings goal
Is to have Hamas in power. But then a good Israeli supporter won’t mention that will they
Wag the dog with externalization of internal strife and also to misdirect away from public scrutiny? That’s indeed what can be expected from unprincipled state actors, and Netanyahu is definitely a rogue and has been for far longer than just these last 2 months or so.
Israel is a pariah state and Netanyahu is a terrorist. He needs to be stopped.
Terrorists will rot in hell (if you believe in that), but so will those who force “regime change” on false information, and all their minions who went charging in to implement said regime change.
Those who have enacted a genocide against the children of Palestine will also rot in hell. Those who dont mention that genocide against the children of Palestine will also rot in hell.
HAIL SATAN!
There is no genocide. There’s war, and war is a terrible thing involving massive loss of innocent lives. It will end when Hamas surrenders, or when Palestinians overthrow Hamas.
But Hamas’s strategy is to maximize innocent casualties on both sides, in attempt to capitalize on the misery of Palestinians. That’s the only thing working for them, so they try hard to maximize misery. The west must not reward this.
Leave it to @747always to make a foolish false equivalency. @Uri, you are quite correct.
Leave it to Matt to ignore the thousands of Palestinian children who have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers.
But neocons like Matt don’t care about anything but their own kids. Unless those kids want a seat someone else has booked on a plane.
Nice to see you try to absolve yourself of the deaths you and your fellows enacted in Iraq. Keep going to church. You’ll still be in hell.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq in and following from March 2023 was a strategic disaster. And yet the neocons of the world want a replay of that with Iran 20+ years later.
We should be charging Israel big bucks for our increasing security costs. And not only that. Israel is not a reliable US ally, given how it is weakening the US’s hard and soft power projection capabilities over the longer term. People need to pay more attention to what Netanyahu says in Hebrew when he’s appealing to the Israeli right-wing — he literally prides himself on being a user and an abuser of the US. And yet so many Americans consider Netanyahu to be a US ally and deserving of limitless support. It’s truly nuts to be so supportive of Netanyahu, although maybe the calculation is different if subject to a situation such as Epstein or Putin holding kompromat on them.
War crimes are war crimes, and crimes against humanity are crimes against humanity. And that is whether or not any belligerent actor — state actor or non-state actor — says they are in a war and that war comes with massive loss of innocent lives.
Hamas has been saying they are in a war with Israel going back decades now. Hamas’s being in war on Israel doesn’t justify the war crimes committed by Hamas. Much the same goes for Israel’s war on Palestinian. Being at war ought to be no shield for the commission of war crimes — and that is whether the war crimes are committed by Hamas or the rogue Netanyahu regime.
Putting together innocents on both sides of the Israel-Palestine war, Israel has maximized innocent casualties over the last 365 days in a way that Hamas hadn’t been able to do by itself in the last 36.5 years put together.
Ah of course, the very Hamas which the Israeli right wing supported yes?
And war justifies killing innocent children for the crime of existing. Interesting
Given the polio breakout in Gaza is likely to spill into Israel where recommended vaccine compliance has been slipping sort of like it has in the US, perhaps flights from Israel to Europe and North America will come with more health screening measures before cases of polio in the US skyrocket among young children in particular?
If I were Bibi I’d have nuked the entire Gaza strip into a flat plain of radioactive glass on October 8. That would have fixed the problem, permanently.
Pete the nuclear holocaust advocate? Then you don’t know Netanyahu and don’t have Netanyahu’s goals in mind. Netanyahu’s objective is to have more land which can be settled by Israeli settlers. Making Gaza, the West Bank and Golan more radioactive even with tactical nukes would get in the way of that since even right-wing Israeli settler zealots don’t want their babies born with high levels of birth defects and then vomiting to death from radiation poisoning in the air, water and soil.
You do realize it’s still not safe for humans to live at Chernobyl? Well, maybe for the wolves and rabid dogs it’s a different story.