Beirut-bound planes diverted to Cyprus

Planes bound for Beirut were being diverted to Larnaca airport in Cyprus on Thursday morning following attacks by Israeli forces on Beirut international airport which disabled all three runways.

The attack came in response to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers in northern Israel by Hizbollah militants who raided from southern Lebanon on Wednesday.

Cross-border fighting in the area has left around a dozen people dead on both sides.

Hizbollah rocket attacks have also hit the northern Israeli town of Nahariya.

Israel, which said that it holds the Lebanese government responsible for Hizbollah’s actions, attacked the airport because it said it is used as a transport hub for Hizbollah weaponry.

The attack came in the middle of the tourist season.

Israeli’s army Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Dan Halutz warned that Isreal could “turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years”, CNN reported.

Lebanon has spent much of the past two decades rebuilding the economy after the war in the late 1980s that involved multiple actors in the region.