Israel Matzav

Ben Gurion Airport IS open

There were rumors going around the synagogue tonight that Ben Gurion Airport is closed. Having landed this afternoon, I was a little surprised to hear that. It turns out that the rumor is false. There may, however, be delays as the civilian air corridor is being narrowed.

The Israel Airports Authority said no flights had been canceled at Ben-Gurion, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Gaza, as result of the hostilities, but takeoffs had been diverted to the east and landings to the north of the airport.

"Due to air force operations, Israel's civilian air corridor has been narrowed," it said in a statement. "There could be delays in takeoffs and landings."

Longer-range rockets in the arsenal of Hamas, the dominant armed group in the Gaza Strip, can reach the airport and other areas in central Israel. On Monday, air raid sirens, warning of possible rocket attacks, sounded in Israeli towns on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, but police said they were false alarms.

...

Ben-Gurion remained open during Operation Pillar of Defense - Israel's 2012 eight-day air operation against terrorists in the Gaza Strip - and an Iron Dome battery was placed near the airport during that conflict.

Officials have not commented on whether the anti-missile system has been deployed near Ben-Gurion in the current upheaval.

In 1991, Ben Gurion was mostly open during Gulf War I, but the foreign airlines all refused to fly in here. It took months to restore service to what it was, and even that came with the foreign airlines redoing their schedules to arrive late at night, leave early in the morning (within an hour or two) and to minimize the amount of time on the ground for both their planes and their flight crews.

It's time to take care of Hamas once and for all.

Labels: Ben Gurion Airport, First Gulf War, Gaza, Hamas rockets, Iron Dome, Operation Protective Edge

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:11 PM