Major American airlines stopped flying to Israel on Tuesday after a rocket fell near Ben-Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv, and after the Federal Aviation Administration told the carriers not to fly to Tel Aviv for 24 hours.

All three United States carriers with service to Israel, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and US Airways, said they had temporarily suspended their flights. The move highlighted the impact of the conflict in the Gaza Strip on the Israeli economy at the height of the summer tourism season.

It also came at a time when airlines around the globe appeared to be much more sensitive about the risks of flying over conflict areas, following the downing of a Malaysia Airlines jetliner over eastern Ukraine last week.

For the moment, European airlines are still operating their flights. British Airways, for instance, said it “continues to operate as normal” and is monitoring the situation closely.

Delta suspended its service between Kennedy International Airport and Tel Aviv “until further notice” and did not indicate when it might resume flights. US Airways said that it canceled Tuesday’s flight from Philadelphia and that it was in contact with federal authorities. United canceled its two daily flights from Newark Liberty International Airport on Tuesday.

Delta had a flight in the air on its way to Israel when the decision was made. Flight 468, a Boeing 747 with 273 passengers and 17 crew members aboard, was diverted to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris after the rocket fell in Yehud, a Tel Aviv suburb just north of the airport. According to Flightradar24.com, the plane was flying over Greece, about two hours from its destination, when it turned around and diverted to Paris.

An Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said that Israel had had no advance notification by the airlines of their intention to cancel flights. The official insisted that it was safe to fly to Israel.

“If they wanted to hand the terrorists a prize they couldn’t have chosen a better way,” the official said, adding, “If it was safe so far, why would it not be safe now? Nothing has changed. The airport has been there since Day 1.”

The rocket that struck Yehud on Tuesday, less than six miles from Ben-Gurion International Airport, landed between two houses and caused extensive damage to them, according to the police.

But the Israeli official noted that most of the rockets fired at the Tel Aviv area by militants had been successfully intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome antimissile defense system. He said he hoped flights would resume after 24 hours. (Source: The New York Times)

Kerry urges Hamas to accept Gaza truce offer

US Secretary of State John Kerry has called on the Palestinian group, Hamas, to accept a ceasefire along the lines of an Egyptian proposal, to end the raging Gaza conflict that has already killed at least 607 Palestinians and 29 Israelis.

The top US diplomat spoke in Cairo on Tuesday after meeting Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, whose government offered the ceasefire proposal last week.

The Palestinian leadership has proposed to Egypt a plan for a ceasefire to be followed by five days of negotiations to stop the fighting, Palestinian official Azzam al-Ahmed told reporters in Cairo on Tuesday.

Kerry's call comes as United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv to discuss how to stop the ongoing bloodshed and begin negotiating.

"My message is the same for Israelis and Palestinians: Stop fighting, start talking and take on the root causes of the conflict so that we are not at the same situation in the next six months or a year," he said.

In response, Netanyahu said, "we will do what we need to do to defend ourselves".

The Israeli prime minister said that the international community must hold Hamas accountable for consistently rejecting multiple ceasefire proposals.

Blockade of Gaza

For Hamas, the root cause is the siege of Gaza, and it has consistently demanded that Israel and Egypt lift the blockade. It also wants the release of dozens of prisoners who were freed in a 2011 swap for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit but re-arrested this summer.

"The conditions for a ceasefire are... a full lifting of the blockade and then the release of those recently detained in the West Bank," its leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, said on television.

"We cannot go backwards, to a slow death," he said, referring to the Israeli blockade in force since 2006.

Israel has little interest in making concessions to the Palestinian group, however. (Source: Aljazeera)

Story Date: July 23, 2014