The German airline Lufthansa extended this Thursday the suspension of its flights to Tehran due to the situation in the Middle East, on alert for possible Iranian retaliation after the Israeli air attack against its embassy in Syria, which destroyed its consulate and killed seven members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, including a senior commander of its elite overseas unit, the Quds Force.
Alarm bells were raised after an Iranian news agency published a report in Arabic on the social network X saying that all airspace over Tehran had been closed for military exercises, a report it later deleted and denied having published.
Countries in the region and the United States have been on alert for a possible retaliatory attack by Iran since April 1, when Israeli warplanes bombed the Iranian embassy complex in Syria.
Lufthansa said on Thursday it had suspended flights to and from Tehran until likely April 13, extending its suspension by two days.
A spokesperson had already announced that the company was not going to operate a flight from Frankfurt to Tehran last weekend to avoid the crew having to disembark to spend the night in Tehran.
Lufthansa and its subsidiary Austrian Airlines are the only two Western airlines that fly to Tehran, where mainly Turkish and Middle Eastern airlines operate.
Austrian Airlines, owned by Lufthansa and flying from Vienna to Tehran six times a week, said it still planned to fly this Thursday but was adjusting schedules to avoid an overnight stopover. Iranian airspace is also a key overflight route for Emirates and Qatar Airways flights to North America.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Israel "must and will be punished" for the attack. Israel, which launched a war in the Gaza Strip six months ago against Iran's ally Hamas, has not confirmed that it was behind the attack on Damascus - a common practice - but the Pentagon has confirmed Israeli responsibility.
In an apparent response to Khamenei, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Israel would respond if Iran attacked Israel from its own soil.
The United States and its allies believe that major missile or drone attacks by Iran or its proxies against military and government targets in Israel are imminent, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing American and Israeli security sources.
According to information obtained by this agency, foreign diplomatic missions are already preparing for possible attacks, making contingency plans for evacuation amid requests from Israeli authorities for emergency supplies such as generators and satellite phones, although there is no knowledge of no Western mission planning an immediate evacuation.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a call with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, made clear that the US would support Israel against any threat from Iran, the State Department said.
In fact, the head of the US Central Command, General Erik Kurilla, will meet this Thursday in Israel with senior military commanders of that country to discuss the threat of an imminent Iranian attack. In an exclusive report, the digital media Axios indicated that Kurilla will meet with Gallant and senior officials of the Israel Defense Forces.
Axios reports that Israeli officials are preparing for a possible unprecedented direct attack from Iranian soil using ballistic missiles, drones and cruise missiles. And in such a scenario, Israel will retaliate with a direct attack on Iran, officials told this outlet.
The Israeli Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, warned this Wednesday in X that "if Iran attacks from its own territory, Israel will respond and attack in Iran."
US Middle East envoy Brett McGurk called the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Iraq to ask them to send a message to Iran urging it to reduce tensions, a source with knowledge of the matter said. the situation. Iran's Foreign Ministry said those countries had spoken by phone with the minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian.
On January 8, 2020, Iran's Revolutionary Guard mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian passenger flight shortly after taking off from Tehran at a time of heightened tensions with Washington over the January 3 assassination of Quds Force chief Qasem Soleimani. , in a US drone attack on Baghdad airport. Iranian forces had fired missiles at military bases housing US troops in Iraq in retaliation for the killing of Soleimani.
Iran-backed groups have been in conflict across the region since Israel launched its attack on Gaza in response to a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 that killed 1,200 people. Since then, more than 33,000 Palestinians have died from Israeli bombings.
