Plane lands in Beirut despite blockade

[maddezmom]

BEIRUT, Lebanon - A Qatar Airways plane landed at Beirut airport on Monday carrying 142 passengers aboard, despite Israel's blockade on Lebanon.

The landing came on the same day that Qatar became the first Arab country to commit troops to monitor a tense cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, pledging 200 to 300 soldiers to a U.N. peacekeeping force.

The Airbus 320 landed at Rafik Hariri International Airport in the first of what the national carrier of Qatar said would be daily flights from Doha to Beirut.

Local Lebanese TV stations touted it as the first plane to break an Israeli air and sea blockade on Lebanon that continues to be enforced after the bitter 34-day fighting that pitted Israel against the Hezbollah guerrillas.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060904/ap_on_re_mi_ea/mideast_qatar_airways

[Fredda Weinberg]

1. Broken? Mebbe

From the link in the OP

Qatar Airways did not comment on whether it had sought Israeli clearance, stating only that it had received approval from Lebanese authorities to operate the flights.

[Cooley Hurd]

2. I thought the runways were bombed out...

They fixed them pretty quickly!:wow:

[MH1]

7. Compare

Hezbollah/Lebanese response (reconstruction effectiveness) to * administration post-Katrina response.

Someone should be ashamed.

Just sayin.'

[Kagemusha]

8. Quickly? It's been weeks.

Frankly, I'm amazed Israel didn't bomb the runaway today, just to make sure the plane couldn't land. Ha'aretz readers commenting on a news story about the plan to break the blockade recommended this over shooting the plane down.

[Solo_in_MD]

11. That was a question I had asked during the fighting

A "regular" bomb blows a hole in the runway that can be readily repair. Special anti runway bombs shatter the substrate and take many months to fully recover from. It appears the former were used, not the latter.

[Lurking Dem]

13. They said at the time

it would take them 48 hours to repair so I doubt that constitutes "bombed out".

[Vidar]

3. Glad they made it.

[xultar]

4. YEA! The air and sea blockade is unfair to the civilians.

[Nimrod2005]

5. Great news for everyone if you ask me...

[azurnoir]

6. Qatar is sending troops to Lebanon

to monitor the cease fire. Israel has had ample time to protest the flight as Qatar announced it yesterday.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2491756

[Kagemusha]

9. I don't think "protest" was the concern here.

Blockades imply, er, you violate it, you die. Your ship gets torpedoed, your plane gets shot out of the sky.

Glad that didn't happen here.

But isn't that ominous for Israel's deterrence?

[Ediacara]

10. I think that if Israel shot a civilian airliner down

in a time of "peace" any international sympathy for the Israeli side would vanish. That would go for any nation blockading another in "peacetime." Military craft and vessels could be seen as legitimate targets, but civilian aircraft are not.

[Solo_in_MD]

12. Be interesting to see if they bomb runways again...

[azurnoir]

14. That is what I meant

If Israel had allowed the plane to reach Lebanese air space and then shot it down it would have appeared to be "bad faith" at this point in time, also and more to the point even though there are no formal relations between the governments there are Israeli's in Qatar for purposes of trade.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2491756

[High Plains]

15. Good for Qatar Airways. Break the blockade.

[bemildred]

16. Qatar Airways denies Beirut flight was coordinated with Israel

Qatar Airways resumed its direct service to Beirut on Monday, despite Israel's air and sea blockade of Lebanon. Though company officials said the plane flew without Israeli permission, Israel said it had agreed to the flight and that more were expected.

"We operated this flight as a result of contacts with the Lebanese government. We don't care about any other permission," Qatar Airways regional director Marwan al-Habr told reporters at Beirut airport.

Israel has demanded that all such flights pass through Amman, Jordan for security reasons. The first Qatar Airways plane landed in Beirut on Monday with 142 passengers on board.

Qatar, a political maverick in the conservative Gulf Arab region, maintains low-level ties with Israel. It is also a key U.S. ally and hosts a major U.S. military base.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/758511.html