Major airlines canceled flights across the Middle East as anxieties mount that the US is preparing to strike Iran.
United Airlines and Air Canada suspended their flights to Israel, while Lufthansa and Swiss Airlines have also nixed travel to the Middle East, according to Israeli media.
Dutch airline KLM has canceled all travel to Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia until further notice, according to Haaretz.
Meanwhile, Air France temporarily suspended flights to Dubai but resumed them on Saturday, France 24 reported.
The widespread suspensions come as tensions increasingly mount between the US and the Islamic Republic, with the Trump administration rapidly building up military assets in the region.
The Pentagon deployed the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and three destroyers from the South China Sea to the Persian Gulf this week.
Thousands of US troops have also been sent to the region after President Trump’s threat to strike Tehran if the regime carried out mass hangings of protesters.
“I said, ‘If you hang those people, you’re going to be hit harder than you’ve ever been hit,” Trump told reporters. “It’ll make what we did to you around nuclear look like peanuts.’”
