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With most of the region’s airspace closed, tens of thousands of travellers have been left stranded by the conflict.
Airlines in the Middle East have been brought to a virtual standstill this week. Emirates and Etihad Airways are now operating a limited number of services from Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Qatar Airways, based in Doha, has just put out a statement reiterating that its operations remain “temporarily suspended” due to the closure of Qatari airspace, but announcing a handful of relief flights.
double quotation markQatar Airways will start operating a limited number relief flights from 05 March to support passengers who are stranded due to the current situation across the region.
This will include flights from Muscat to London Heathrow, Berlin, Copenhagen, Madrid, Rome and Amsterdam, and a flight from Riyadh to Frankfurt. Passengers will be contacted directly if assigned seats on these services, it said.
The airline is promising a further update on Friday.
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British warship to depart for Cyprus next week – officials
A UK warship due to be sent to Cyprus amid the US-Israeli war with Iran will not set sail from Britain until next week, western officials have been cited by the AFP news agency as saying.
Prime minister Keir Starmer announced on Tuesday that he was deploying HMS Dragon – a Type 45 defence destroyer – to aid Britain’s “defensive operations” in the region. He also said he was sending two Wildcat helicopters with counter-drone capabilities.
The announcement came after several drone attacks from Iran targeted UK allies in the Middle East and after the UK Royal Air Force base Akrotiri was struck overnight from Sunday to Monday.
Opposition legislators have accused the government of being too slow to deploy additional resources after the war started on Saturday, with no British warship in the region.
HMS Dragon was being resupplied with ammunition and would sail next week, the officials told reporters in London on Wednesday.
“We’ve had to change weapon systems on it, finish welding, get it up and running, and get it sailing as fast as possible,” defence minister Al Carns told Sky News.
Its voyage to the eastern Mediterranean is expected to take several days.
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Updated at 00.03 EST
US says charter flight repatriating Americans from Middle East
A US government charter flight was bringing Americans to the US from the Middle East and additional flights were being arranged for locations across the region, the US State Department has said.
The agency on Wednesday provided no details on the number of passengers aboard the flight, the countries they were leaving or the departure and arrival times of the flight, Reuters is reporting.
Since US and Israeli forces launched initial strikes on Iran on Saturday, more than 17,500 Americans have safely returned to the US from the Middle East, including about 8,500 on Tuesday, the state department said. Many more had left the Middle East to other countries in Europe and Asia since Saturday, the department said.
On Monday the state department urged Americans across 14 countries in the Middle East to immediately depart the region using “available commercial transportation”. But many US citizens face challenges due to global air travel disruptions caused by the war.
The situation prompted sharp criticism from some US lawmakers, who accused the state department of inadequate planning and late warnings.
The department responded by saying it was “facilitating charter flights” from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan for US citizens in need of such assistance.
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Updated at 23.50 EST
Here are some of the latest images coming out of the Middle East amid the US-Israeli war with Iran.
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Updated at 23.32 EST
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to our continuing live coverage of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Canadian prime minister Mark Carney said on Thursday that he couldn’t rule out his country’s military participation in the escalating war in the Middle East.
“One can never categorically rule out participation,” he said alongside his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese in Canberra. “We will stand by our allies,” added Carney, who had said the US-Israeli strikes on Iran were “inconsistent with international law”.
Iran launched a fresh round of missiles at Israel early on Thursday, according to the Israeli military and Tehran’s state media, as the war entered its sixth day. The launches triggered alerts in several areas including Tel Aviv. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Here are the other main developments:
An airstrike hit the Hezbollah stronghold of south Beirut early on Thursday, after Israel had issued a warning to residents. Elsewhere, three people were killed in a pair of Israeli strikes on vehicles along Beirut’s airport highway, Lebanon’s health ministry said. Israel has urged people to leave the section of Lebanon south of the Litani river – an area of hundreds of square kilometres – as the army was “compelled to take military action”.
A US submarine torpedoed and sank an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka as the effects of the war in the Middle East spread to yet another country. The IRIS Dena frigate had been on a friendly visit to India when it was hit. Eighty-seven bodies had been collected, a Sri Lankan navy official said.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel and the US had made “historic gains” in their war against Iran. A spokesperson for the prime minister also claimed the attack was needed as Iran was using “new underground bunkers” to rebuild its atomic bomb program.
Donald Trump hailed the US performance in the war, saying Iran’s leaders were rapidly being killed, and vowed to push on. “We’re doing well on the war front, to put it mildly. Somebody said on a scale of 10, where would you rate it? I said about a 15.”
A ballistic missile launched from Iran and heading towards Turkish airspace via Iraq and Syria was destroyed by Nato air defense systems, Turkish officials said.
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth offered few details and was evasive when asked about the deadly strike on a girls’ school in Iran, saying only that the US was “investigating” the incident. Iranian officials say the attack on Saturday killed at least 165 students
Intense waves of airstrikes have hit dozens of military positions, frontier posts and police stations along northern parts of Iran’s border with Iraq in what appears to be preparation by US and Israel for a new front in their war. A US official said the US was ready to provide air support if Kurdish peshmerga fighters crossed the border from northern Iraq.
A tanker at anchor off Kuwait reported seeing a large explosion on its port side and was taking on water, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said. The master observed a small craft leaving the area after the explosion, which occurred 30 nautical miles (56 km) south-east of Kuwait’s Mubarak Al Kabeer port in the Gulf, it said.
Spain doubled down on its opposition to Washington’s use of its bases against Iran after Trump’s threats of trade reprisals. The White House said Madrid had now agreed to cooperate, but Spanish foreign minister Jose Manuel Albares said its stance on “bases, on the war in the Middle East, on the bombardment of Iran, has not changed at all”.
Governments around the world are rushing to organise the return of their citizens from the Middle East and air traffic seems to be picking up slightly as travel across the region remains heavily disrupted by the crisis.
The Omani navy rescued 24 crew members of a container ship struck by missiles in the strait of Hormuz.
Stay with us for the latest news.
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Updated at 23.16 EST
