Air Canada Flight 84 Alters Course Before Landing At Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport As Hamas Fires Rockets

Air Canada Flight 84 to Tel Aviv changed course before landing at Ben-Gurion airport Friday as Hamas targeted the airport with three missiles, the airline said.

"Five miles prior to landing at Tel Aviv airport this morning, our Flight AC84 originating from Toronto was advised by Israeli Air Traffic Control to perform a standard go-around until airspace conditions could be confirmed as safe for landing," Air Canada said in an email sent to the CBC. "Our pilots altered course following ATC's instructions and landed 10 minutes later safely, without incident, at [12:07 p.m.] local. The return flight AC85 to Toronto departed at [1:59 p.m.]"

The go-around by AC84 occurred about 25 minutes after the Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military arm, tweeted that it fired three missiles toward Ben Gurion Airport:

The targeting of the airport by Hamas prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to halt flights from the U.S. to Tel Aviv on Tuesday and Wednesday, lifting the order a day later. Air Canada followed suit, the Toronto Star reported.

Hamas has justified firing missiles toward Ben-Gurion -- none of which have landed at the Tel Aviv airport.

“Well, in fact, in this fight, Ben-Gurion Airport is used by military air jets, so it’s targeted because it’s used by the Israeli air forces,” Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.