El Al will operate over the Sabbath this weekend for the first time in over 40 years while major Syrian airports will remain closed after Israeli airstrikes destroyed runways and other infrastructure.
Major Syrian Airports Bombed By Israel While El Al Will Operate On Sabbath For First Time In Over 40 Years
Syrian Airports Bombed
Overnight, Israel bombed Damascus (DAM) and Aleppo (ALP) airports in a move it says will prevent those air fields from being used as staging grounds for attacks against Israel via the importation of arms from Iran. The Islamic Republic has long backed Syria’s Assad regime and numerous Iranian minister and defense officials are purportedly I n
While a Syrian Air flight from Dubai (DXB) to Damascus did take off from Dubai this afternoon, it appears it did not land in Damascus as planned:
Via NOTAM, the runways at DAM are closed until at least next Wednesday.
El Al To Operate Over Sabbath
Meanwhile, El Al has announced it will operate over the Sabbath for the first time since 1982, when it bowed to conservative pressure to shut down from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday. After receiving rabbinical permission to operate these flights pursuant to the preservation of life, El Al will operate flights from both New York (JFK) and Bangkok (BKK) to Tel Aviv (TLV) in an effort to bring reservists back to Israel.
Over 300,000 reservists have been called up since war broke out, some of whom are not currently living in Israel. Interestingly, tickets will be free on these flights, with El Al explaining that ticket costs “will be borne by El Al and large US financial institutions.”
This marks a stark diversion from El Al’s general practice, which includes diverting in order to avoid aircraft being in the air over Shabbat.
> Read More: Did Passengers Attack EL AL Flight Attendants Over Sabbath Delay?
CONCLUSION
Israeli attacks against Syrian airports have resulted in the closure of Damascus and Aleppo airports until at least next Wednesday. Meanwhile, El Al will operate on the Sabbath for the first time in over four decades.
Good on EL AL .
Saturday, Matthew, is Shabbos, the Jewish day of rest. That means I don’t work, I don’t drive a car, I don’t f*cking ride in a car, I don’t handle money, I don’t turn on the oven, and I sure as sh*t don’t f*cking fly El Al!
What’s the point of your comment? Rabbinical dispensation has been provided – under the circumstances, it is quite a logical decision.
It’s a quote from the Big Lebowski. Humor often doesn’t translate to comment threads, especially when dealing with such a serious subject.
Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, uh, your opinion, man…
Oh boy, Matthew… And you call yourself an Angeleno.
I’m appalled that anybody thinks that ‘rabbinical permission’ is needed in the first place. Other Israeli carriers (Arkia, Israir) happily fly on Shabbat week in, week out. Another example of why politics and religion should be separate!
Those who own the controlling majority of El Al should be the ones to decide how they want their flight schedule and fleet utilized. If they decide to optimize fleet utilization that is sub-optimal from my perspective, it’s really their business to decide.
I think at the current situation, following religious rules is the last priority for anyone in Israel.
Meantime in Gaza…
Well, actually not directly, but the focus should be on Gaza even with the distraction strikes meant to delay supply channels for Hezbollah via Syria and to try to understand what Syria is inclined to do if or when things between Hezbollah and Israel get even hotter than already this week.
…. and now back to Gaza. Well, by way of Sweden:
Went by a Swedish school this morning and saw some kids balling their head off. The kids’ young cousin had just been killed in Gaza as Israeli attacks caused the roof of their home to fall in on their relatives. The kids were only told that the roof of their cousin’s home had collapsed. I knew the cause as the neighborhood had been pummeled from above and we have hundreds of Americans stuck in Gaza and we don’t allow US Government personnel to go in.
There is a very real risk that more Americans will have been killed this month in Gaza from Israeli military action than Americans murdered by Hamas this month.
>Went by a Swedish school this morning and saw some kids balling their head off. The kids’ young cousin had just been killed in Gaza as Israeli attacks caused the roof of their home to fall in on their relatives.
Of all the things that didn’t happen, this happened the least.
Stop being a racist. Do better.
I wish it didn’t happen, but it happened.
There are lots of Palestinian-origin people in Sweden — maybe even 80k or so by this point since it’s not just those born in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel proper but also their children to be counted and those born in refugee camps and elsewhere beyond — and Gaza has turned out to be disproportionately more represented in the numbers for quite some time
I was in Sweden this morning, going by schools at that. I’m sure the Hastens sales people closest to me there recognize me, but you’re welcome to disbelief the truth just like those who disbelief the truth and prefer the myth that the 2020 election was “won” by Trump and “stolen” from him.
I have my biases, but bigotry on the basis of ethnic and religious affiliation is not one of them.
“And then everyone clapped” … no, no it did not. Nobody believes you. We do know you celebrate murder on Jews, though.
>There are lots of Palestinian-origin people in Sweden
Yes, this is why people support Israel. They *know*.
Your comments and sense of judgment are so weird that I have to assume you’re an alien from another planet and thus can’t fully understand English or other human languages yet. Comprende?
Loretta Jackson is the one coming off as a racist…an ignorant one, too.
“There is a very real risk that more Americans will have been killed this month in Gaza from Israeli military action than Americans murdered by Hamas this month.”
Wrong. As a result of Hamas’s assault and Israel’s right to defend itself and it’s citizens. The IDF is dropping leaflets telling Gazan residents where to leave prior to bombing strike. Hamas is telling them to stay so they can up the Palestinian casualty count.
This is 100% on Hamas.
I can only hope to be wrong about this, but between
the number of American hostages Hamas has taken into Gaza from Israel from last Friday to today and other Americans who are in Gaza
and
the number of Americans killed by Hamas outside of Gaza during Hamas’s attacks this month,
there is a very real risk that
the number of Americans who will be killed by Israel’s leveling Gaza this month could indeed exceed the number of Americans killed by Hamas this month.
A right to defend doesn’t provide a right to commit war crimes. And it’s a war crime for a military to level civilian residential neighborhoods using military weaponry.
Responsible state actors should behave responsibly and abide by the laws of war or be held legally responsible as war criminals.
I stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself but I won’t stand up for war crimes no matter who commits them.
@ GUWonder, first I want to sincerely thank you for all the time you have spent engaging in this thread and others.
Second, how should Israel defeat Hamas? Can it? If Hamas fighters are hiding in residential communities among residents, how can they ever be stopped?
Changing the status quo might be a good start so people have less of a reason to support Hamas. Also, for the all the people saying the Israelis are telling the residents to leave and Hamas is telling them to stay…where would they go? It’s one of the most densely populated areas on the planet and Israel controls all the land, sea, and air borders to the country (unlike the Palestinians, the Israeli’s are free to fly back to their countries), and Israel has blown up the only land option between Egypt and Gaza so…where are the Palestinians in Gaza supposed to go?
I’m not sure what you want from Israel, exactly. That the death count in Gaza had -just- passed Hamas’ one-day body count for their rape, torture and murder after 5 days of heavy bombing with a vastly superior arsenal implies that IDF has been as ethical as you can get, all things considered.
You keep crying about a war crime that isn’t there.
And oh by the way, Gaza is still firing hundreds of rockets at Israel.
How about “think of the children” of Gaza too to honor the lives of the Israeli children who were murdered by Hamas. No loving child raised normally in a normal environment wants to see another child killed, but that is what will continue to happen and on an awfully ugly scale with this “level Gaza” mentality that the Israeli generals know is so very wrong that they are now hiding away their personal electronic devices when having conversations with each other to try to more securely discuss this “level Gaza” stuff. They literally want to try to make sure there is no electronic trail about this being deliberated at the highest levels as inviting mass casualties of kids too.
The children in Gaza were said to be stuck in hell on earth even before Hamas’s atrocities this month killed children in Israel, and now it’s going from worse to worse for the children on the “wrong” side of the fence as those kids witness unleashed wrath rather than justice aimed solely at the perpetrators and other militant members of the Hamas gang.
Not sure about how you think, but I consider it a crime
Leveling Gaza enough to commit
genocide may purge Hamas from Gaza, but it will enable Deif’s Masada complex and make things existentially more risky for Israelis longer term as the world gets closer and closer to even lone wolf terrorists being able to unleash a weapon of mass destruction capable of wiping out even a large city.
The hate and anger being as unbridled as it is now won’t serve Israelis as well over the longer term as it will Deif even after he is long dead, and that should scare everybody who cares about securing Israeli lives.
Not sure about how you think, but I consider it a crime against kids when kids are exposed to criminal violence in their personal life perpetrated by the people who have a responsibility to protect. Israel took and kept Gaza, and so it should protect the children there too even while trying to get rid of Hamas. Israel is not doing that. It’s raining hell upon the kids of Gaza more than on anyone else in Gaza.
I tried to include this in the prior submission but I sort of messed that up. So here it is this time.
Israel can stop the settlement’s expansion in the West Bank, stop siding with settles who kill Palestinians, stop appropriation of Palestinian land to build more settlements, end the blockade, stop stealing the water, stop the settlers from torching Palestinian farms, not shooting Palestinians at peaceful protests, stop jailing Palestinians indefinitely with just cause, etc…
What about the Palestinian’s right to defend themselves?
The right to self-defense doesn’t include going on the offense and committing atrocities against civilians, even children, at the receiving end of any weapon or other implement of violence used as such.
It’s also a war crime for an occupying/controlling power to force relocate whole communities as Israel is trying to do already after the Hamas insanity against Israel. It’s literally reminiscent of what the Ottoman Turks and their tools did to the Armenians in that genocide.
Just curious if Swedish is your first language? I only ask because my wife is Swedish and is completely fluent in English (she’s lived in the US for 20 years), but I’ve noticed some similarities here with word choice, idioms, etc. (in this post and elsewhere).
Not trying to disparage in any way. Just something very nuanced I picked up on.
Only a native speaker of English. Hadn’t even been to Sweden until decades after I had learned French and Spanish at schools in the US, with my first Spanish exposure being from when I was a carpetbagging Yankee in Texas as a kindergarten kid where they were more into talking about Sam Houston and the Alamo than about George Washington and the (US) Declaration of Independence.
Does she add ketchup to things that surprised you, and how many pairs of whiteConverse sneakers did she have when she was younger? If you don’t get why I asked, ask her why I asked.
Ketchup on pasta and white converse still in the closet. Don’t forget eating a hamburger with a fork and knife.
Sorry, I had drafted a long response to you (and Matthew — the long part mostly being about getting Hamas out of the picture, the amusing part being the Swedish stuff — but it disappeared with some kind of auto refresh while I was still adding to it. Will get back to it later, maybe after some additional practice with using a knife and fork to eat a burger.
Or does she still watch Donald Duck every Christmas?
Why is GUWonder a racist?
Disbelieve*
Why are you so ignorant?
Oh look, another racist. “Derek”.
Probably GUWonder’s alt. We can now infer his age based on what he thinks a “generic” name is.
No. Derek would most certainly not look like me in the mirror. But you’re welcome to believe whatever myths you want to believe about anyone, some of which are apparently going to come up about me in Denver this weekend either before or after Randy Petersen’s scheduled 2:45pm talk and final goodbye to the FlyerTalk gang.
Loretta, I don’t know who you are or what your problem is but you need to stop ✋. Your comments on this website give me the impression that you are an insane maniac. You haven’t ever contributed constructively to a discussion. The one time you weren’t making idiotic insults (such as calling me a racist) is when you called for Israel to “murder as many Gazans as they can get their hands on.”
I don’t support either governments, but I do support the Israeli people and the Palestinian people. I hate how you get on this website and add fuel to the fire. You are the troll most deserving of a ban on this website.
I see a lot of people calling Hamas they/them. Can anyone confirm these are the correct pronouns?
Hamisis preferred pronouns-
Islamo-Facists; Islamo-Nazis; Jihadi-Facists; Jihadi-Nazis.
If not entirely, Hamas is mostly a gang of guys. They are probably younger on average nowadays than they used to be 20 years ago, but that really shouldn’t be shocking given that the median age in Gaza is around 18 years old and maybe up to c. 44% of Gaza is 14/15 years of age or younger.
Cocaine, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and El Al flying on the Sabbath… The 80s were wild!!
Firstly who really cares? Is it news? Israel clearly does what it wants, when it wants. Matthew I am sorry, but you like the vast majority of the new outlets, have little regard for the innocent civilians being destroyed by Israel. A country that is proud to boast it dropped 6000 missiles on a small landlocked area full of babies, children and women. Hamas are hiding there, and indeed they need to be punished. Hamas committed war crimes and the whole world is shocked because they are terrorists. yet a country does it and it’s okay, of course, because we have US Blinked standing on stage going on how is great grandfather was a Jew. Comparing it to 9-11 is a disgrace, nowhere near the scale of it. As usual, Israel does what it wants.
I’m not understanding why the 9/11 comparison is a bad one. What makes it a “disgrace” ?
The US wasn’t occupying Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Algeria — the countries from which the 9/11 terrorists and their leadership came.
El Al’s operating on the Sabbath has everything to do with the emergency in Israel and not a thing to do with anything happening in Syria.
D’uh.
I was reporting two news events. I’m not saying they are directly related…
State is now publicly acknowledging that there are Americans stuck in Gaza because of the Israeli blockade. The public estimate is 500-600 Americans there. I have indications it’s closer to a 1000 than to 500 and that it includes a whole lot of American kids.
The Europeans know they have this kind of situation too, but the main European powers would rather silence the public awareness of how many of their national are at risk of dying if stranded in Gaza than to do the right thing.
It’s a very dark period for Israel, the Palestinians and the world, and the way otherwise supposedly responsible actors are behaving at this time is a real warning sign of how poorly the world has been doing with taking lessons from the Holocaust and other genocides of the last century. It speaks poorly of humanity to respond like animals in the face of being attacked by worse animals.
Does this include American citizens kidnapped into Gaza? There’s quite a few of these.
Indeed there are, and they are included as the known American one whose families were on a rather substantial phone call with Biden. The Americans who are stuck in Gaza but weren’t taken into Gaza as hostages from Israel are the far larger proportion of Americans stuck in Gaza and they have been on no such call with Biden.
Egypt has agreed to allow Americans to come into Egypt from Gaza. They have also agreed to let in Brits, including the family of the Scottish First Minister’s wife. The French and the Germans are doing a weak job from the top and coattail-riding.
The US is currently working on various levels to get the Israelis to cooperate for these exits but these folks, understandably so, are more hot-headed than anyone in comparable roles in DC/VA/MD after 9/11 but they seem to be opening to the PR aspect if they don’t cooperate in letting such people out of Gaza.
In the meantime, the Biden Admin is coaching the careerist civilian and military management personnel on what language to use and not use when discussing the Israeli-Palestinian issues.