Hamas said it fired three rockets at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday — only one day after US carriers and some European airlines started flying there again following a two-day freeze.
“At 11:45 a.m. (0845 GMT), the Qassam Brigades bombarded Ben Gurion airport with three M75 rockets,” Hamas’s armed wing said in a statement, according to AFP.
The attack was confirmed by an Israeli military spokeswoman, but she refused to say how close the rockets were to the airport.
“We can confirm two rockets were shot down over metropolitan Tel Aviv,” she told AFP.
It’s still unclear if the rockets caused any damage, but passengers cleared out of the airport’s hall when sirens rang out, Reuters reported.
This is the second attack on Israel’s airport in a week. On Tuesday, a Hamas rocket was intercepted near airport runways, prompting the Federal Aviation Administration to ban commercial flights to Tel Aviv. That freeze was lifted late Wednesday.
An Air Canada flight arriving from Toronto on Friday had to circle the airport before landing was deemed safe, according to CBC News.
“Five miles prior to landing at Tel Aviv airport this morning (July 25), our Flight AC84 originating from Toronto was advised by Israeli Air Traffic Control (ATC) to perform a standard go-around until airspace conditions could be confirmed as safe for landing,” Air Canada said in an email.