Hamas Demands Israel Open Airspace To Missiles From Gaza

An agreement between Riyadh and New Delhi last month opened Saudi skies to Air India craft flying to and from Israel, the first time the Saudis will allow any flight to or from Israel to cross its airspace.

Gaza City, March 12 – Recent development in Middle East air traffic have prompted leaders of the militant movement that governs this coastal territory to charge Israel with hypocrisy over insisting El Al be granted the same rights to overfly Saudi Arabia to and from Israel as Air India is slated to receive, while denying missiles from Gaza free access to Israeli airspace.

Hamas spokesman Mahmoud al-Zahar lambasted “Zionist perfidy and hypocrisy” in a speech this morning, calling the attempt by Israel’s national carrier a two-faced, exploitative move that underlines its double standards regarding Gaza.

“While the Zionist airline executives whine like toddlers about a competitor attaining an unfair advantage in air travel to and from India, they give barely a thought to the plight of rockets with no way out of our territory but through Zionist-controlled airspace,” he railed. “Hundreds of rockets from Gaza have sought to reach their destinations via that airspace, only to be shot down. The world must punish the Zionists for this blatant and flagrant violation of international humanitarian norms.”

An agreement between Riyadh and New Delhi last month opened Saudi skies to Air India craft flying to and from Israel, the first time the Saudis will allow any flight to or from Israel to cross its airspace. While observers note the regional political implications for relations that appear to be developing between Saudi Arabia and Israel, executives at El Al voiced commercial concerns at the airspace access issue: El Al remains barred from Saudi airspace and must take a roundabout, longer, and more costly route to India than Air India can by traversing that airspace.

Hamas decried the “normalization” implications of the Saudi decision immediately following its announcement, but in its more recent denunciation focused on the suffering of Gaza’s missile population. “Some of our rockets have launched into the Mediterranean, so desperate have they been to get out of here,” he lamented. “The cruelty and hypocrisy of the Zionists knows no bounds. They complain about Saudi airspace closure and deny our rockets passage through theirs. We will not be deterred – we will defy the Zionist air blockade as we have the sea blockade, and push our rockets through where they must reach. And as with our human population, we do not care how many must suffer as we pursue our uncompromising stance against the enemies of everything noble and good.”

Al-Zahar cut short the encounter when a journalist asked why the rockets cannot escape via the tunnels from Egypt through which they entered in the first place.

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