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More Airlines Cancel Beirut Flights Amid Escalation

People watch the sunset along Beirut's seafront corniche as an aircraft approaches to land at Rafic Hariri International Airport on July 29, 2024. (Photo by Khaled DESOUKI / AFP)
People watch the sunset along Beirut's seafront corniche as an aircraft approaches to land at Rafic Hariri International Airport on July 29, 2024. (Photo by Khaled DESOUKI / AFP)
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More Airlines Cancel Beirut Flights Amid Escalation

People watch the sunset along Beirut's seafront corniche as an aircraft approaches to land at Rafic Hariri International Airport on July 29, 2024. (Photo by Khaled DESOUKI / AFP)
People watch the sunset along Beirut's seafront corniche as an aircraft approaches to land at Rafic Hariri International Airport on July 29, 2024. (Photo by Khaled DESOUKI / AFP)

Greece's Aegean Airlines and Germany's Condor cancelled flights to Beirut on Tuesday, the latest airlines to suspend services to the Lebanese capital in recent days as tensions escalate between Israel and Hezbollah.
Aegean said it would suspend flights until Thursday, while Condor cancelled Tuesday's flight from Dusseldorf, Reuters reported.
Air France and Lufthansa Group carriers Swiss, Eurowings and Lufthansa on Monday announced flight cancellations.
A number of other carriers have suspended, delayed or cancelled some flights, although Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport listed arrivals on Tuesday from airlines including Pegasus, Emirates, Royal Jordanian, EgyptAir, Iran Air, Qatar Airways and Etihad.
Lebanon has been bracing for retaliation from Israel since a strike on Saturday in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights killed 12 children and teenagers. Hezbollah has denied blame.

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Arab World

Israeli Forces Quit East Khan Younis, Palestinians Recover Dozens of Bodies 

Palestinians make their way to return to neighborhoods in the eastern side of Khan Younis after Israeli forces pulled out from the area, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip July 30, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinians make their way to return to neighborhoods in the eastern side of Khan Younis after Israeli forces pulled out from the area, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip July 30, 2024. (Reuters)
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Israeli Forces Quit East Khan Younis, Palestinians Recover Dozens of Bodies 

Palestinians make their way to return to neighborhoods in the eastern side of Khan Younis after Israeli forces pulled out from the area, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip July 30, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinians make their way to return to neighborhoods in the eastern side of Khan Younis after Israeli forces pulled out from the area, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip July 30, 2024. (Reuters)

Thousands of Palestinians returned to their homes in the ruins of Gaza's main southern city Khan Younis on Tuesday, after Israeli forces ended a week-long incursion there which they said aimed to prevent armed group Hamas from regrouping.

Palestinian health officials said rescue workers had so far recovered 42 bodies of Palestinians killed in the Israeli incursion into eastern Khan Younis. Gaza's Civil Emergency Service said more searches were underway with 200 people still reported missing.

The Israeli military said its forces killed more than 150 Palestinian gunmen during the week-long raid, destroyed militant tunnels and seized weapons.

After the Israeli forces left, people streamed back to their homes on foot and with donkey carts carrying their belongings. Many found their houses damaged or destroyed.

Witnesses said army forces had bulldozed the main cemetery in Bani Suhaila, the town on the eastern outskirts of Khan Younis that was the main focus of the raid, as well as houses and roads nearby.

"I am coming back and I have faith in God. I don't know whether we will live or die, but it is all for the sake of the homeland," said Etimad Al-Masri, who had walked for at least five kilometers back to her home.

"Despite the suffering, we are patient and God willing we will have victory."

Many residents said they had been displaced from their homes several times.

"We hope there will be a ceasefire and calm. We hope that they act on a ceasefire so that we can live in security and safety," said Walid Abu Nsaira, holding some of his belongings on his shoulder as he walked back home.

Ten months into the war, Israeli forces have largely completed their storming of nearly the entire Gaza Strip and have spent the past several weeks launching new assaults on areas where they had already claimed to have rooted out Hamas. Thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate their homes, most of them previously displaced several times already.

Efforts to negotiate a ceasefire through mediators, ongoing for months, are once again faltering. On Monday, Israel and Hamas traded blame over the lack of progress.

Hamas wants a ceasefire agreement to end the war in Gaza, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the conflict will stop only once Hamas is defeated. There are also disagreements over how a deal would be implemented.

The war began with an assault on southern Israel by Hamas-led fighters who killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and captured around 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Since then Israeli forces have killed more than 39,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to health authorities there who do not distinguish between combatants and civilians but say more than half of the dead are women or children. Israel, which has lost around 330 soldiers in Gaza, says a third of the Palestinian fatalities are fighters.