Israel Cancels Flights to Paphos, Cyprus, Over Security Concerns

Israeli airlines canceled commercial flights to Paphos, Cyprus, due to security concerns on Sunday.

  • Israel’s Shin Bet security agency ordered Israeli airlines El Al, Arkia and Israir to suspend flights to Paphos, a popular vacation spot for Israelis, “due to security reasons that cannot be made public.”

Flights to Cyprus’s Larnaca airport remain unaffected, and there was no travel advisory for Paphos itself.

The decision to concentrate flights to and from Cyprus to the Larnaca airfield is based on various security considerations.
—Shin Bet

Military base: The Paphos airport is adjacent to Cyprus’s Andreas Papandreou Air Force Base, which is a main transit post for humanitarian operations in the Middle East.

A Cypriot official recently said the United States Air Force was looking to upgrade this military post “to further improve the base’s safety.”

Experts from the 435th Contingency Response Group, a U.S. Air Force air base assessment unit based out of Ramstein, Germany, is currently at the Papandreou Air Force Base evaluating potential upgrades.

Strategic location: Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has written for years that Cyprus’s strategic location could one day be a major danger to Israel if it falls under the control of the wrong hands.

While this most recent threat hasn’t been revealed publicly, if certain foreign powers increase their involvement in Cyprus, this threat to Israel will become more real.

To learn more about Cyprus’s strategic importance, read Mr. Flurry’s article “Why Germany Conquered Cyprus.”