Russia warns against travel to Middle East amid fears of Iranian attack on Israel – as it happened

Amy Sedghi (now) and Caroline Davies (earlier)

Russia on Thursday advised against travel to the Middle East and German airline Lufthansa extended a suspension of its flights to Tehran, as the region was kept on edge by Iran’s threat to retaliate against Israel for an attack in Syria, reports Reuters.

Iran has vowed revenge for the 1 April airstrike on its embassy compound in Damascus which killed a top Iranian general and six other Iranian military officers. Israel has not declared its responsibility for the attack.

According to Reuters, Russia’s foreign ministry told citizens they should refrain from travelling to the Middle East, especially to Israel, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

“We strongly recommend that Russian citizens refrain from traveling to the region, especially to Israel, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, except in cases of extreme necessity,” it said.

“The tense situation in the Middle East region persists,” said the foreign ministry, which first issued such travel advice in October when it urged Russians not to visit Israel and the Palestinian territories after Hamas attacked Israel.

Lufthansa said on Wednesday it had suspended flights to Tehran due to the situation in the Middle East. On Thursday, the airline said this had been extended until probably 13 April.

A spokesperson said Lufthansa had decided not to operate a flight from Frankfurt to Tehran last weekend to avoid the crew having to disembark to spend the night in the Iranian capital, say Reuters.

Lufthansa and its subsidiary Austrian Airlines are the only two western carriers flying into Tehran, which is mostly served by Turkish and Middle Eastern airlines.

Austrian Airlines, which flies from Vienna to Tehran six times a week, said it was still planning to fly on Thursday but was adjusting timings to avoid an overnight layover.

According to Reuters, there was no immediate word from other international airlines that fly to Tehran.

Here is a recap of the latest developments:

• Russia’s foreign ministry on Thursday advised against travel to the Middle East and German airline Lufthansa extended a suspension of its flights to Tehran, as the region was kept on edge by Iran’s threat to retaliate against Israel for an attack in Syria. Lufthansa said on Wednesday it had suspended flights to Tehran due to the situation in the Middle East. On Thursday, the airline said this had been extended until probably 13 April.

• A video has surfaced of a senior official at Israel’s cyber intelligence agency, Unit 8200, talking last year about the use of machine learning “magic powder” to help identify Hamas targets in Gaza. The footage raises questions about the accuracy of a recent statement about use of artificial intelligence (AI) by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), which said it “does not use an artificial intelligence system that identifies terrorist operatives or tries to predict whether a person is a terrorist”.

• Israeli forces killed three sons of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in an airstrike in Gaza without consulting senior commanders or political leaders including prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli media reports said on Thursday. Quoting senior Israeli officials, Walla news agency said neither Netanyahu nor defence minister Yoav Gallant had been told in advance of the strike, which was coordinated by the Israeli military and the Shin Bet intelligence service.

• Haniyeh said the Israeli attack that killed three of his sons and at least two grandchildren would not change Hamas’s demands for a permanent ceasefire and return of displaced Palestinians from their homes in ongoing negotiations mediated by Doha and Washington. “All our people and all the families of Gaza have paid a heavy price in blood, and I am one of them,” Haniyeh said. The Israeli military statement confirmed it had targeted Haniyeh’s sons, who it described as “three Hamas operatives” who were “on their way to carry out terrorist activities” but did not comment on reports that Haniyeh’s grandchildren had also been killed.

• Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday offered condolences in a phone call to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh after the death of his three sons in Gaza, his office said. “President Erdoğan stressed that Israel will definitely be held to account before law for the crimes of humanity it has been committing,” his office said in a statement on social media.

• Israel’s foreign ministry on Thursday denounced Ireland’s new prime minister Simon Harris for not mentioning the hostages held by militants in Gaza during a speech to the Irish parliament. Harris – who was sworn in on Tuesday – “forgot” to “mention the 133 Israeli hostages who have been rotting in Hamas tunnels for the past six months,” Israel’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

• The US president, Joe Biden, has vowed that US commitment to defend Israel against Iran was “ironclad”. The US secretary of state Antony Blinken has also made clear that the US will stand with Israel against any threats from Iran, in a call with Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday, according to the state department.

• Iranian threats to carry out a missile strike against Israel are “unacceptable”, the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said as he reaffirmed the UK’s support for Tel Aviv’s right to defend itself. Speaking to broadcasters on Thursday, Sunak condemned the Ayatollah’s comments, saying they were “unacceptable”. He said: “We, like the Americans, fully support Israel’s right to defend itself against that.”

• German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock called her Iranian counterpart Hossein Amirabdollahian to urge “maximum restraint” to avoid further escalation, Reuters reported on Thursday.

• The US Middle East envoy Brett McGurk has reportedly called the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Iraq, asking them to deliver a message to Tehran to lower tensions with Israel. The Reuters news agency, citing a source who spoke on the condition of anonymity, says that McGurk asked the officials to contact the Iranian foreign minister and convey the message – which they are reported to have done. McGurk’s calls were first reported by Axios but the White House has declined to comment.

• At least 33,545 Palestinians have been killed and 76,094 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Thursday. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.

• Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is continuing its war in Gaza but is also preparing for scenarios in other arenas, the Times of Israel reports. “We are in challenging times. We are in the midst of a war in Gaza that is continuing with full force … but we are also preparing for challenges from other fronts,” the website reports Netanyahu telling pilots at an air force base in southern Israel.

• It has been reported by US media that Hamas does not have 40 living hostages who fit the criteria needed for an exchange under a proposed ceasefire deal. In an article published on Wednesday, The New York Times cites a senior Israeli official and a senior Hamas official as the sources. CNN also reported the claims, saying sources had told the news outlet that Hamas had informed international mediators it does not have the required number of living hostages who fit the criteria, including women, sick and elderly men. It also says that Israel is now pushing for Hamas to instead include younger male hostages, as well as soldiers in an initial release. The Guardian has been unable to verify the reports.

• The Kremlin on Thursday called for all countries in the Middle East to show restraint and prevent the region slipping into chaos. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said there had been no requests for Russia to mediate between Israel and Iran, though Peskov said the Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus was a violation of all the principles of international law.

• US senator Tim Kaine, a former vice-presidential nominee and leading foreign policy voice in the Democratic party, has said Joe Biden, now understands that Benjamin Netanyahu “played” him during the early months of the war in Gaza but “that ain’t going to happen any more”. In an interview with the Guardian on Tuesday, Kaine accused the prime minister of making Israel “dramatically less safe” and hurting its longstanding relationship with the US, and said the US president had come to realise the limits of his influence.

• The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had struck a building used by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, reported the Times of Israel on Thursday. The IDF also said tanks had shelled an area near Tayr Harfa to “remove a threat”.

• Several countries including France and Jordan airdropped about 110 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Gaza, the French president and military said. The French military on Wednesday said the UK and Germany were involved in the operation, the largest France had taken part in so far.

• The UN deputy secretary general Amina J Mohammed said that “humanity” and the “international community” has “lost” its “moral compass on Gaza”. In a social media post shared on Thursday by the UN, Mohammed urged action, saying: “We’re late.”

• The US military said on Thursday that it had shot down 11 drones belonging to Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, after the group claimed it had targeted Israeli and US ships off the Gulf of Aden. The latest Houthi attacks targeted two Israeli ships as well as a US commercial vessel and a US warship, the Houthis said in a statement.

• The United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa) has been awarded a Spanish civil order of chivalry and honour by the king of Spain. Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of Unrwa, posted on social media on Thursday that it was “an honour” to receive the award. “This is in recognition of the extraordinary service of our teams wherever they are including in Gaza,” wrote Lazzarini.