After speaking at a crucial meeting of the IAEA, a senior Iranian diplomat spoke out against US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites. Reza Najafi described the attacks as a “collapse” of the values that underpinned Western civilization.
A day after the United States bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities, joining Israel in its war on Tehran, the Middle East region remains on edge.
Israel and Iran continued to trade attacks, and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian threatened retaliation against the US, saying, “the Americans must receive a response to their aggression”.
Since June 13, when Israel launched its current wave of attacks on Iran, more than 400 Iranians have been killed and at least 3,056 others wounded, while at least 24 Israelis have been killed in Iranian retaliatory strikes.
Amid the intensifying conflict, air traffic in the region has thinned dramatically, including over Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, affecting areas well beyond the Palestinian territory, Iran, and Israel.
So, are airlines stopping flights to the Middle East? What is the importance of this aviation zone? And how long can airlines suspend flights to parts of the Middle East?
Since Israel attacked Iran on June 13, air traffic has been disrupted over many Middle Eastern countries. The initial Israeli attacks forced Iran, Iraq, and Jordan to close their airspaces.
After the hostilities began, Israel’s main airport, Ben Gurion in Tel Aviv, was shut, and its flag-carrier, El Al, suspended all flights to and from Israel. Since then, Israel briefly reopened its airways, at times, to airlift stranded passengers.
Meanwhile, as Israel and Iran continued to launch missiles at each other, hundreds of flights that were scheduled to pass through the Middle East were cancelled or diverted.
Many international carriers have either halted or rerouted flights that normally fly through the Gulf corridor.
Emirates announced it has “temporarily suspended all flights” to Tehran, Baghdad, and Basra through June 30. FlyDubai also halted services to Iran, Iraq, Israel, and Syria until late June.
Qatar Airways posted a notice that it had “temporarily cancelled flights to Iran, Iraq and Syria”. It cited the “current situation in the region”, emphasising passenger and crew safety. The airline has stated that it “fully complies with international aviation regulations for safe aircraft routes”.
Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways said it has suspended its entire Abu Dhabi-Tel Aviv schedule until July 15. The airline confirmed in a statement that it is “assisting affected guests with alternative travel arrangements” and warned that further schedule disruptions could occur; it reiterated that “the safety of our guests and crew remains our highest priority”.
Other regional carriers have acted similarly: Oman’s SalamAir suspended all flights to Iran, Iraq, and Azerbaijan through June 30 “due to the evolving regional situation”, and Air India diverted or turned back several flights that normally cross Iranian airspace.
Global aviation safety bodies, including Safe Airspace, have issued alerts over heightened risks after the US strikes and the potential for Iranian retaliation. The organisation has said ongoing missile and drone activity in the region presents a threat to commercial flights, particularly those operated by US-based airlines.
The region, Iran in particular, has a history of deadly aviation incidents brought about by military tensions.
In 1988, an Iran Air flight was shot down by a US naval ship. US forces had breached Iranian waters and fired at the civilian Iran Air flight IR655, headed to Dubai on July 8. All 290 people on board were killed. The US, which claimed it was a mistake, did not, however, formally apologise or claim responsibility.
In January 2020, an Iranian missile accidentally brought down a Ukrainian passenger jet, killing 176 people, again amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington. The US had assassinated Iranian general Qassem Soleimani days earlier.
It is vital for global aviation, said Alex Macheras, an aviation analyst and consultant based in the Middle East.
“When access to this corridor is disrupted, there is an immediate global ripple effect: aircraft are pushed further south, flight times stretch, and costs surge,” Macheras told Al Jazeera. “For airlines, time is money — and detours cost both.”
The importance of the Middle East air corridor as a transit route for flights between Europe and Asia has grown further after Russian and Ukrainian airspace largely became off-limits for international carriers following Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. As a result, Europe-Asia flights have been squeezed into just a few narrow channels, passing through the Middle East.
“Iranian and Iraqi skies sit on the natural axis between east and west, offering the most direct path for passenger and cargo flights linking Europe with South Asia, Southeast Asia, and beyond,” Macheras said.
Now, with these air corridors affected too, airlines and passengers should brace for impact, say experts. Rerouting flights increases flight time, fuel burn, and crew costs. A potential spike in oil prices after the US attacks on Iran will also affect the airlines’ fuel costs.
However, Macheras added, it is important to remember that the Middle Eastern airlines have been here before.
“This isn’t new territory. Whether it’s airspace closures, geopolitical flashpoints, or unexpected security escalations, the Gulf carriers have developed the operational maturity to respond with speed and precision,” he noted.
In fact, carriers are already adapting.
While there is almost no air traffic over Iran, Iraq, Syria or Israel now, Macheras said, “Saudi airspace has become the region’s new backbone, absorbing east-west traffic displaced from Iran and Iraq.”
Recent flight-tracking data highlight the congestion shift. Flightradar24 reports that daily overflights of Saudi Arabia roughly doubled from about 700 in mid-May to 1,400 per day after Iran and Iraq closed their skies on June 13.
Macheras noted that regional airlines have adapted to this situation in recent years by smoothly shifting wide-body traffic through this corridor. “The result: passengers experience no delay, no disruption, and no visible sign of what’s happening above. It’s all done in a way that shields the passenger from the chaos unfolding around it,” he said.
Flights over Afghanistan, a lesser-used corridor, spiked by nearly 500 percent after June 13, from about 50 to 280 flights daily.
Meanwhile, several Europe-Asia flights are now being rerouted north via the Caspian Sea — through Turkiye, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan — or south via the Red Sea and Saudi Arabia.
Regional carriers have also issued travel advisories and revised their schedules in response to airspace closures. Some carriers have quietly rerouted flights without public pronouncements.
None of this is surprising, said Macheras.
“Today, we have the greater power to free a nation by breaking a dangerous and aggressive regime. With new tactics and precision weapons, we can achieve military objectives without directing violence against civilians.”
That may sound like something said yesterday, following US strikes on Iran.
But it wasn’t.
Those words were delivered by United States President George W Bush on board the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, as he marked the end of major combat operations in Iraq.
Now, with Israel and the US engaged in an escalating conflict with Iran, world leaders are using language and rhetoric that sound all too familiar, drawing eerie comparisons to the lead-up to the Iraq war more than two decades ago.
Israel and the US have claimed their military strikes are aimed at preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Iran, for its part, insists its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful and meant solely for civilian purposes.
For more than three decades, a familiar refrain has echoed from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Iran is on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. In 2002, he urged the US Congress to invade Iraq, claiming Baghdad was developing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). He also claimed Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons. The US invaded Iraq in 2003, but no WMDs were found.
The latest surge in inflammatory rhetoric from American and Israeli officials goes beyond Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions and missile capabilities. Increasingly, it hints at the possibility of regime change, a direction the US has a long and controversial history of pursuing in the region.
The war led by the US and its “coalition of the willing” left Iraq in ruins, with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed, about 4,500 American soldiers dead, and the country destabilised by deepening sectarian conflict.
Looking back, the rhetoric that paved the way for that invasion seems unsettlingly familiar. The US, along with the United Kingdom, tried to convince the world that Iraq had WMDs as the war progressed.
EXPLAINER
Although a final push is required for the likes of Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain to qualify, renowned clubs like Munich, Bayern and Manchester City must also do so in order to qualify.
Al Jazeera Sport breaks down the scenarios that some of the comparatively smaller clubs might be able to pass through while revealing which teams are in and which teams are out.
These five clubs can breathe easy with two wins out of two and six points:
The journey has come to an end for seven clubs after losing their first two games:
The teams that advance to the knockouts will be determined based on a set of tie-breakers in the event of a point tie. The next tie-breaker will be used until a winner is chosen, whichever tie is won. These procedures are:
The four European giants and the Lionel Messi-led side are still the favorites to advance to the second round, but the following clubs still need to do more to advance.
Yes, each of the four clubs’ first two games saw at least two points, which gave them a strong chance of qualifying.
Al Hilal and Monterrey both won two games with two draws, each totaling two points. Regardless of the outcome of the other Group H game, the Saudi club will face the ousted Mexican side Pachuca for a chance to win a big game and then rely on their superior goal difference to get there. The same requirements apply to Monterrey’s game against Urawa, which they are in.
The Sundowns have a chance to qualify for the Club World Cup with their skill and colorful celebrations, but their match against Brazil’s Fluminense will not be fun and games. The South African club will have six points if they win, but a draw with Borussia Dortmund, who lead with four points, might force them to leave.
Given their lower goal difference, ES Tunis are in a straight winner-goes-through shootout with Chelsea, which will require a draw for the Tunisian club.
The Colombian army says more than 50 soldiers have been seized by civilians in a southwest mountainous area.
A platoon of soldiers was the first to be seized on Saturday during an operation in El Tambo, a municipality that is part of an area known as the Micay Canyon, a key zone for cocaine production and one of the most tense in the country’s ongoing security crisis.
On Sunday, another group of soldiers was surrounded by at least 200 residents as they headed towards the town of El Plateado, in the same region.
“As a result of both events]both kidnappings], a total of four noncommissioned officers and 53 professional soldiers remain deprived of their liberty”, the army said on Sunday.
General Federico Alberto Mejia, who leads military operations in the southwest, added in a video that it was a “kidnapping” by rebels who had “infiltrated” the community.
The Colombian army has maintained that the civilians in the region receive orders from the Central General Staff (EMC), the main dissident group of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) that refused to be part of a peace deal with the government in 2016.
President Gustavo Petro, who has pledged to bring peace to the country, said on social media that freeing the soldiers “is imperative”.
The left-wing leader has been trying for months to ensure that the country’s armed forces gain access to Micay Canyon.
But his government has struggled to contain violence in urban and rural areas as several rebel groups try to take over territory abandoned by the FARC after the peace deal.
This has made many Colombians fearful of a return to the bloody violence of the 1980s and 90s, when cartel attacks and political assassinations were frequent.
I’m not so sure whether Iran’s concern about attacking US military installations in GCC nations is high.