Brussels Airlines, the largest Belgian airline company, is scheduled to resume flights to Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport on Wednesday, joining Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines, both of which resumed flights to Tel Aviv on August 1.
Ground baggage handling staff workers at Brussels airport, however, are demanding a suspension of flights to Israel, citing the alleged “genocide” in Gaza.
The ground staff vowed to boycott flights to Israel “until the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank ends.”
Local unions representing the baggage handling staff urged the airline company to release workers from the Israel assignment “for moral reasons.”
“As a union, we will support these people. If there is any obligation, we will consider taking action,” a union representative stated.
French airport services firm Alyzia, which operates at Brussels Airport, has “urged management to stop serving Israeli airline El Al and carriers planning flights to Israel, including Brussels Airlines, until the conflict in Gaza and the West Bank ends.”
In addition, the unions are demanding for staff to have the right to “refuse handling baggage or cargo for such flights without penalty, warning of possible action if participation is mandatory.”
Brussels Airlines is part of the Lufthansa group, which also includes SWISS, Austrian Airlines, and Eurowings. When Israel closed its airspace on June 13, at the outset of the 12-day war with Iran, the Lufthansa group suspended all flights to and from Tel Aviv.
Air travel has become yet another area where Israel is singled out for opprobrium and Jews face increasing harassment. Earlier this month, a Jewish passenger flying from Buenos Aires to Madrid on Iberia Airlines discovered that the slogan “Free Palestine” had been scribbled across the packaging of his kosher meal. Other kosher meals also had the slogan written on them.
Also this month, a Jewish passenger traveling on a Jetblue flight discovered that the word “Zionazi” had been scrawled on his kosher meal.
The NGO Combat Antisemitism pointed to the incidents as examples of the increasing normalization of Jew-hatred.
“Both incidents underscore a growing concern about the normalization of antisemitism, particularly in public spaces, such as flights where passengers may feel vulnerable,” Combat Antisemitism wrote. “The antisemitic labeling of kosher meals aboard JetBlue and Iberia flights reveals an urgent need for stronger policies, accountability, and visible actions from airlines to prevent hateful acts aboard their planes.”
In the most recent serious incident last month, Spanish carrier Vueling Airlines called police to remove 50 Jewish children, aged 10 to 15, from a plane in Valencia bound for Paris. The children had sung a Hebrew song before takeoff, but stopped immediately when asked by the crew. Despite this, police were still summoned.
According to Israel’s Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli, the airline crew had called Israel a “terrorist state,” a claim that was later confirmed by witnesses.
“In line with Hamas’s campaign of lies echoed by Al Jazeera, Haaretz, and others, we are seeing numerous severe antisemitic incidents recently; this is one of the most serious,” Chikli wrote in a post on 𝕏.