The decision was announced amid fears of a military outbreak between Israel and Hezbollah. Tel Aviv promised on Sunday (28) to respond “with force” to an attack it attributed to the Lebanese Shiite group, which the previous day had killed 12 children and teenagers playing on a soccer field in the Syrian annexed Golan Heights.
(RFI) Lufthansa announced on Monday (29) that it has suspended flights to Beirut until August 5 due to fears of a military outbreak between Israel and Hezbollah.
Flights by airlines belonging to the German group, Europe’s largest – Lufthansa, Eurowings and Swiss – to the Lebanese capital are “canceled due to current events in the Middle East,” a company spokesman told AFP on Monday, following the deadly attack attributed to the Shiite Hezbollah movement in the Golan Heights, a mountain range between Israel, Lebanon and Syria that has been the scene of several bloody clashes between Israelis and neighbors in the past.
The airlines Air France and Transavia France have also suspended their services to Beirut this Monday and Tuesday “due to the security situation at the final destination”, a spokesperson for the Air France-KLM group announced on Monday.
“Flights between Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Beirut have been suspended on July 29 and 30, 2024,” and “this decision also applies to [Air France’s low-cost airline] Transavia France,” the airline added. “Affected customers will be notified individually and offered solutions for postponement or refund.”
What is known about the attack attributed to Hezbollah by Israel
The most recent toll is 12 dead, aged between 10 and 16, and around 30 injured, following a deadly attack in the Israeli town of Majdal Shams. The Lebanese terrorist group denies being behind the attack.
This was the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians since October 7, 2023. On Saturday night (27), Israeli police, army and rescue teams reported that rockets were being fired from Lebanon into the annexed Golan Heights in northern Israel.
Around 30 people were still hospitalized in Israel on Sunday. The attack hit a soccer field in the town of Majdal Shams, located on the Golan Heights in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. This attack on civilians in Israel is the deadliest since the October 7 offensive.
The attack was quickly attributed to Hezbollah, the Lebanese extremist group supported by Iran. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz declared that the rocket fired “was an Iranian rocket”, stating that Hezbollah was “the only terrorist organization with an Iranian rocket in its arsenal”.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog also accused Hezbollah. “Hezbollah terrorists violently attacked and killed children today whose only crime was to go out to play soccer. They didn’t come home,” he said.
Since October 7, this movement, allied to Hamas, has exchanged cross-border fire with the Israeli army on an almost daily basis. The rocket attack on the soccer field in the Golan Heights came after a Lebanese security source announced that four Hezbollah fighters had been killed by an Israeli attack in southern Lebanon.
For its part, Hezbollah said it had fired rockets at military positions in the Golan Heights on Saturday, but denied that it was behind the rocket that hit the soccer stadium.
In a statement, the pro-Iranian movement said it “categorically denies the allegations reported by certain enemy media and various media platforms about the attack on Majdal Shams” and “confirms that the Islamic Resistance has no connection to the facts.”
Emergency meeting
As soon as he returned from the United States, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a meeting with various authorities in a small closed group, without the extreme right-wing ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
Pressure is mounting on Israel to react with restraint following the attack on the stadium in the Druze village of Majdel Shams on the Golan Heights.
According to local media reports, a US official asked the Israelis not to carry out attacks on Beirut. A high-ranking Israeli political source, widely quoted in Israel, said this afternoon that the Israeli response would be strong, but would not cause a widespread military explosion in the region.
In Lebanon, society is once again feverish after Saturday’s attack on the annexed Golan Heights. Attacks continued on both sides of the Lebanese-Israeli border on Sunday, as well as on the Bekka plain in the east of the country, Hezbollah’s headquarters.
As far as the international community is concerned, French President Emmanuel Macron assured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a telephone conversation that France was “fully committed to doing everything possible to avoid a new escalation in the region,” the Elysée announced.
The head of state pledged to transmit “messages to all the parties involved in the conflict”. According to the Elysée, Emmanuel Macron “also reiterated the need to reach a political solution to the Blue Line issue, on the basis of Resolution 1701”.
The UN Secretary-General also condemned the deadly attack on the Golan Heights and called on “all parties to exercise maximum restraint”. “Civilians, and children in particular, must not continue to bear the brunt of the terrible violence in the region,” said Antonio Guterres, through his spokesperson.
(RFI and agencies)