Islamist Hamass armed wing has warned airlines that it intends to target Israels Ben Gurion International Airport with its rockets from Gaza and has told them not to fly there, a statement by the group said on Friday. The airport, Israels main international aerial gateway, has been fully operational since Israel began an aerial offensive on Tuesday in the Gaza Strip and Palestinian militants intensified their cross-border rocket fire. International airlines have continued to fly in, despite now-daily rocket salvoes at Tel Aviv that either have been intercepted by Israels Iron Dome missile defence system or hit areas where they caused no casualties. In the light of Israels ... attacks on the residents of Gaza Strip ... The armed wing of Hamas movement has decided to respond to the Israeli aggression and we warn you against carrying out flights to Ben Gurion airport, which will be one of our targets today because it also hosts a military air base, the statement said. The group claimed earlier that it had already fired at least one rocket towards the airport on Friday but no militant rockets are known to have landed in or around the airport, which is well protected by missile interceptor systems. A spokesman for Israels airport authority said that a siren had sounded at Ben-Gurion and that all activity had stopped for about 10 minutes, but that the siren was part of a general alert in the Tel Aviv area and not a direct threat to the airport. At least 99 Palestinians have died during Israels four day-old air-and-sea offensive on Gaza as it attempts to halt rocket fire by militants into Israel. Militants have fired hundreds of rockets into Israel reaching deeper into the country than ever before. The militant group said it had issued the warning to the airlines so that they could avoid injury to their passengers. A British Airways spokeswoman says all flights to Tel Aviv were running as planned. German airline Air Berlin , which offers daily flights to Tel Aviv from Berlin plus several times a week from Munich, said its flights to and from Tel Aviv are currently being operated as planned. But passengers with flights booked for the period to July 18 could change their date of departure to a later date free of charge, a spokeswoman told Reuters in emailed comments, adding that the carrier was closely monitoring the situation. A statement from Germanys Lufthansa said the airline continues to serve Tel Aviv normally.Ground invasion coming? Israeli leaders, determined to end Palestinian rocket attacks deep into the Jewish state, have hinted that they could order the first ground invasion of the coastal strip in five years. Some 20,000 army reservists have been mobilized. The Israeli military said it launched fresh naval and air strikes early on Friday, giving no further details. The salvoes into Israel have so far caused no fatalities, due in part to interception by Israels partly-U.S. funded Iron Dome aerial defense system. However, eight people were wounded, one in serious condition, by a rocket on Friday that hit a fuel tanker at a gas station in Israels port city of Ashdod, an ambulance service spokesman said. Firefighters doused the blaze. Three rockets were intercepted over the Tel Aviv metro area on Friday morning, the military said. Fire was also exchanged across Israels northern border. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised statement on Thursday: So far the battle is progressing as planned, but we can expect further stages in future. Up to now, we have hit Hamas and the terror organizations hard and as the battle continues we will increase strikes at them. The four day offensive is the deadliest since October 2012, when around 160 Palestinians and six Israelis were killed during an Israeli campaign to punish Hamas for missile attacks. That conflict was eventually halted with Egyptian mediation. If Israel launches a ground invasion of Gaza, it would be the first since a war in early 2009 when 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed. We have long days of fighting ahead of us, Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri sounded a defiant note, when asked about Yaalons remarks. Our backs are to the wall and we have nothing to lose, he said. We are ready to battle until the end.
Posted on: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 23:09:24 +0000