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Middle East Airlines Moves Most of its Planes from Lebanon

FILE PHOTO: Lebanese Middle East Airlines (MEA) planes are pictured at the tarmac of Beirut international airport, Lebanon February 16, 2020. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
FILE PHOTO: Lebanese Middle East Airlines (MEA) planes are pictured at the tarmac of Beirut international airport, Lebanon February 16, 2020. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
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Middle East Airlines Moves Most of its Planes from Lebanon

FILE PHOTO: Lebanese Middle East Airlines (MEA) planes are pictured at the tarmac of Beirut international airport, Lebanon February 16, 2020. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
FILE PHOTO: Lebanese Middle East Airlines (MEA) planes are pictured at the tarmac of Beirut international airport, Lebanon February 16, 2020. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

Lebanese carrier Middle East Airlines (MEA) decided to move a number of its airplanes to neighboring countries as a precaution in case of conflict, thus reducing the number of its daily flights from and to Beirut.

The decision came after changes to the company’s insurance coverage policy following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

MEA said it was informed by the insurance companies about a decision to reduce their war risk coverage.

Mohammed Al-Hout, chairman of MEA, said only eight of the company’s 22 planes would operate as of next week, with the rest relocated to other airports.

Only one-third of the company’s flights scheduled before the crisis will remain operational.

MEA plans to move ten of its airplanes to neighboring countries including Cyprus, Oman, and Doha. Seven airplanes will continue flights as normal at Beirut Airport.

Al-Hout said insurance companies began to worry about the risk of war when the Israel-Hamas “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” started, and an assessment was carried out in cooperation with them.

According to the Chairman of MEA, insurance coverage for war risks has been reduced by approximately 80 percent. “However, our priority is to secure communication between Lebanon and the rest of the world,” he said.

“We don’t have security information about a possible attack on the airport in Lebanon but references and all the information we got indicated that the operations will remain within the rules of engagement and under control in southern Lebanon,” Al-Hout affirmed.

Similar concerns arose during the 2006 July War when Israeli airstrikes targeted Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport.

“In 2006, the airport was bombed and there were six planes stuck in Lebanon. Through contacts, the Israelis gave us a margin of time to evacuate the planes. However, today the situation is different and it's about insurance companies,” he said.

MEA’s decision came while several countries advised their nationals to leave Lebanon amid rising regional tensions related to the Israel-Hamas war.

On Friday, Oman's embassy in Beirut urged Omani citizens to leave Lebanon immediately “due to the events taking place in the region” in a post from the embassy on social media platform X.

Belgium and Ukraine issued similar travel warnings.

Pierre Achkar, President of the Federation of Tourism Syndicates and the Syndicate of Hotel Owners, revealed significant losses that the Lebanese tourism sector is expected to incur due to the ongoing conflict in Gaza and the developments in southern Lebanon.

He anticipated that tourism establishments would lose the profits they had earned during the summer season.

Moreover, he disclosed that “European groups planning to visit Lebanon during October and November have canceled their reservations following their countries' travel warnings about going to Lebanon.”

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Arab World

Syrians Celebrate a Month Since Assad’s Overthrow With Revolutionary Songs in Damascus

People stand before the New Clock Tower along Quwatli Street in the center of the city of Homs in west-central Syria on January 8, 2025. (Photo by OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
People stand before the New Clock Tower along Quwatli Street in the center of the city of Homs in west-central Syria on January 8, 2025. (Photo by OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
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Syrians Celebrate a Month Since Assad’s Overthrow With Revolutionary Songs in Damascus

People stand before the New Clock Tower along Quwatli Street in the center of the city of Homs in west-central Syria on January 8, 2025. (Photo by OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
People stand before the New Clock Tower along Quwatli Street in the center of the city of Homs in west-central Syria on January 8, 2025. (Photo by OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)

A packed concert hall in Damascus came alive this week with cheers as Wasfi Maasarani, a renowned singer and symbol of the Syrian uprising, performed in celebration of “Syria’s victory."
The concert Wednesday marked Maasarani’s return to Syria after 13 years of exile. While living in Los Angeles, Maasarani had continued to support Syria’s uprising through his music, touring the US and Europe, The Associated Press said.
The concert organized by the Molham Volunteering Team, a humanitarian organization founded by Syrian students, also marked a month since a lightning insurgency toppled former President Bashar Assad.
Revolutionary songs like those by Maasarani and Abdelbasset Sarout — a Syrian singer and activist who died in 2019 — played a key role in rallying Syrians during the nearly 14-year uprising-turned civil war starting in 2011.
Many opponents of Assad's rule, like Maasarani, had fled the country and were unsure if they would ever be able to come back.
In the dimly lit concert hall, the crowd’s phone lights flickered like stars, swaying in unison with the music as the audience sang along, some wiping away tears. The crowd cheered and whistled and many waved the new Syrian flag, the revolutionary flag marked by three stars. A banner held up in the hall read, “It is Syria the Great, not Syria the Assad.”
One of Maasarani's best known songs is “Jabeenak ’Ali w Ma Bintal,” which he first sang in 2012, addressing the Free Syrian Army. It was a coalition of defected Syrian military personnel and civilian fighters formed in 2011 to oppose Assad during the civil war.
“You free soldier, the Syrian eminence appears in his eyes, he refused to fire at his people, he refused the shame of the traitor army, long live you free army, protect my people and the revolutionaries,” the lyrics read.
Another banner in the audience read, “It is the revolution of the people and the people never fail.”
Between performances, Raed Saleh, the head of the civil defense organization known as the White Helmets, addressed the crowd, saying, “With this victory, we should not forget the families who never found their children in the prisons and detention centers.”
Thousands were tortured or disappeared under Assad’s government. After the fall of Assad, the White Helmets helped in the search for the missing.
After the concert, Maasarani told The Associated Press, “It’s like a dream” to return to Syria and perform his revolutionary songs.
“We were always singing them outside of Syria, experiencing the happy and sad moments from afar,” he said, adding that his role was to capture the atrocities on the ground through song, ensuring “they would be remembered in history.” He reflected on his years in exile and recalled surviving two assassination attempts before leaving Syria.
“We have not seen this state without Assad since I was born,” said Alaa Maham, a concert attendee who recently returned from the United Arab Emirates. “I cannot describe my feelings, I hope our happiness lasts.”
The future of Syria is still unclear, as the former insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, now the de facto ruling party, begins to form a new government and rebuild the country's institutions.
Whatever comes next, Maham said, “We got rid of the oppression and corruption with the fall of Assad and his family’s rule."