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Unexploded WWII Bomb Closes London City Airport

FILE PHOTO: Aircraft stand idle at City Airport after a protest closed the runway causing flights to be delayed, in London, Britain September 6, 2016.
FILE PHOTO: Aircraft stand idle at City Airport after a protest closed the runway causing flights to be delayed, in London, Britain September 6, 2016.
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Unexploded WWII Bomb Closes London City Airport

FILE PHOTO: Aircraft stand idle at City Airport after a protest closed the runway causing flights to be delayed, in London, Britain September 6, 2016.
FILE PHOTO: Aircraft stand idle at City Airport after a protest closed the runway causing flights to be delayed, in London, Britain September 6, 2016.

London City Airport says all flights in and out have been canceled for Monday after an unexploded World War II-era bomb was found nearby in the River Thames at King George V Dock.

Police said the ordnance was found during work at the airport on Sunday and they set up a 200-metre exclusion zone, adding that all properties within the zone had been evacuated and a number of roads were cordoned off.

London's Metropolitan Police and Royal Navy are cooperating to remove the bomb.

Robert Sinclair, CEO of London City Airport, the city’s fifth biggest and the most central, said: “The airport is cooperating fully with the Met Police and Royal Navy and working hard to safely remove the device and resolve the situation as quickly as possible,” Reuters reported.

British Airways said it was trying to minimize disruption for passengers after the airport’s closure.

“We are rebooking customers due to travel today onto alternative flights or offering refunds for those who no longer wish to travel,” the airline said in a statement.

London was heavily bombed during the Nazi German air attacks of September 1940 to May 1941, according to AFP.

London City Airport opened in 1987 in the disused docklands.

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Kamala Harris Says De-Escalation Needed in Middle East

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks to the press before boarding Air Force Two at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada, as she travels to Arizona. (Photo by RONDA CHURCHILL / AFP)
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks to the press before boarding Air Force Two at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada, as she travels to Arizona. (Photo by RONDA CHURCHILL / AFP)
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Kamala Harris Says De-Escalation Needed in Middle East

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks to the press before boarding Air Force Two at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada, as she travels to Arizona. (Photo by RONDA CHURCHILL / AFP)
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks to the press before boarding Air Force Two at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada, as she travels to Arizona. (Photo by RONDA CHURCHILL / AFP)

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said on Thursday that de-escalation was needed in the Middle East, a region on edge for months amid Israel's wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
WHY IT'S IMPORTANT
A ceasefire remains elusive in Gaza and Lebanon and the region is bracing for an Israeli response to an Iranian missile attack last week carried out in retaliation for Israel's military action in Lebanon. No one in Israel was killed in Iran's attack, and Washington called it ineffective.
For Gaza, President Joe Biden put forward a three-phase ceasefire plan on May 31, which has run into obstacles for months over Israeli demands of keeping presence in a corridor on Gaza's border with Egypt and over differences in exchanges of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
In Lebanon, Washington and Paris put forward a 21-day ceasefire proposal in late September that Israel rejected.
KEY QUOTES
"We have got to reach a ceasefire," Harris told reporters as she departed Las Vegas, while commenting on the situations in Gaza and Lebanon. "We've got to de-escalate."
Washington's occasional condemnation of Israel over the war's civilian death toll has mostly been verbal with no substantive change in policy.
CONTEXT
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7, 2023, when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel's subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed almost 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and displaced nearly the entire population, while causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.
Israel's recent operations in Lebanon have killed hundreds, wounded thousands and displaced over a million. Israel says it is targeting Lebanese Iran-backed Hezbollah militants.