British Airways flight from London to Tel Aviv is diverted due to security concerns in Israel after Hamas attack: Plane had almost reached destination before turning back around
A British Airways flight from London to Israel was forced to turn back just moments before it had reached the city due to security concerns.
The BA165 flight had almost reached Tel Aviv when it was forced to change course back to London Heathrow amid Hamas launching a fresh wave of rocket attacks.
A BA spokesperson said: ‘Safety is always our highest priority and we’ve taken the decision to return our Tel Aviv flight to Heathrow.’
A spokesperson for Israel’s airports authority said rockets were flying around Tel Aviv at the time but were not an immediate threat to the flight or to Ben Gurion Airport.
The diversion back to Britain was the pilot’s decision and no other flights have been diverted, the spokesperson said.
Since the surprise attack by terrorist group Hamas on Israel on Saturday, many international airlines have suspended flights to Tel Aviv.
The BA165 flight (not pictured) had almost reached Tel Aviv when it was forced to turn back to London Heathrow due to safety concerns
It comes after Hamas launched a fresh wave of rocket attacks on Israel which included bombing a child development centre (pictured: Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City)
BA, owned by IAG, later announce they had suspended all flights to and from Israel.
Flight-tracking website Flightradar showed the flight had almost reached Tel Aviv and was near northern city Haifa when it made a U-turn. It was due to land at 3.05pm.
Wizz Air and Virgin Atlantic announced this week it had cancelled flights to and from Israel.
It comes after Hamas launched a fresh wave of rocket attacks on Israel across southern Israel, including a child development centre, even as Gaza holds its breath with Israel’s Defence Forces massing hundreds of thousands of troops on its border.
Shocking images and videos out of Israel’s southern city of Ashkelon purportedly showed how the Child Development wing of the Barzilai Medical Centre suffered a direct hit which reduced parts of the building to rubble.
A spokeswoman for the centre said: ‘The child development centre at the Barzilai hospital in Ashkelon suffered a direct hit by a projectile from Gaza,’ while Deputy Director Dr. Gili Givati told Israeli public radio: ‘The development centre was completely destroyed.’
Smoke billows from a fire that broke out after a rocket attack from Gaza in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon
Israelis take cover from the incoming rocket fire from the Gaza Strip in Ashkelon, southern Israel
A picture shows a crater made by a rocket fired from Gaza outside a supermarket in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon
Israelis look at the damage by rocket fire fired from the Gaza Strip in Ashkelon, southern Israel
Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes demolished entire Palestinian neighbourhoods on Wednesday, and hospitals in the Gaza Strip are struggling to treat the injured with dwindling medical supplies as the IDF encircle the 25-mile-long swathe of land ahead of a planned invasion.
Gaza’s two million residents lost electricity this afternoon as the enclave’s sole power plant ran out of fuel and shut down, energy officials said, deepening the crisis inside the 140-square-mile territory that is currently besieged by Israeli forces.
‘The only power plant in the Gaza Strip stopped functioning at 2pm,’ the authority’s head said in a statement, having earlier warned that it was running short of fuel.
The war has claimed at least 2,200 lives on both sides, and is only expected to escalate further from this point. Humanitarian groups have pleaded for the creation of corridors for the delivery of aid ahead of the likely Israeli assault.
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