Flight-tracking data from FlightRadar24 showed the aircraft making what appeared to be a figure-eight once nearing the airport in Aktau.
ADVERTISEMENT Hundreds of worshippers, both Palestinians and foreigners, attended the Midnight Mass at the Church of Nativity in the West Bank.
The Head of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa was present at the church.
Christmas time is usually one of high tourism for the historical city of Bethlehem.
“I have to say that Christmas in Bethlehem is always nice, but this time is the second year we have a sad Christmas in Bethlehem” said Pizzaballa.
38 of the 67 people on board the Embraer 190 perished in an Azerbaijan Airlines crash that occurred Wednesday morning in the Kazakh city of Aktau, authorities said.
According to information Euronews obtained from official sources connected to the crash investigation, surviving passengers heard an explosion as the plane approached Grozny, the destination in Russia, and then what appeared to be shrapnel struck the aircraft, damaging the fuselage.
According to a Russian military blogger, “the damage to the aircraft suggests that plane may have been accidentally struck by an air-defence missile system.” This information is consistent with a report from Azerbaijan-based international news channel AnewZ.
Since Chechnya and Ramzan Kadyrov’s fighters are still vital to the Kremlin in Russia’s continuous full-scale invasion of its western neighbor, Grozny is well defended and could be targeted by Ukraine’s drones.
The incident, if verified, would be comparable to the 2014 downing of the MH17 airliner in the Donbas by Russian-backed forces, which also used a surface-to-air missile.
32 of the 67 passengers on the plane had survived, according to earlier reports from the prosecutor general’s office in Azerbaijan. Nevertheless, 29 people remain after the most recent death toll.
The emergency ministry of Kazakhstan first reported that 25 people had survived the crash, but as the search and rescue effort at the crash site proceeded, the number was later revised to 27, 28, and 29. Two children have been admitted to the hospital along with all other survivors.
Approximately three kilometers from Aktau, flight 8432, which was en route from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to Grozny, made an emergency landing after allegedly colliding with a flock of birds, according to the airline.
Azerbaijan Airlines reports that 37 of the passengers were citizens of Azerbaijan. Six Kazakhs, three Kyrgyzstanis, and sixteen Russians were also present.
As it approached the Aktau airport, the plane made what looked like a figure-eight, according to flight-tracking data from FlightRadar24. Prior to impacting the ground, its altitude fluctuated significantly during the final minutes of the journey.
The aircraft had experienced “strong GPS jamming,” according to a separate online post by FlightRadar24, which “made the aircraft transmit bad ADS-B data,” which is the data that enables flight-tracking websites to track aircraft while they are in flight.
Videos from social media that the AnewZ news channel collected seem to show the plane attempting an emergency landing and exploding in a fireball as it hits the ground.
According to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who spoke at a press conference, the weather caused the plane to deviate from its intended path, but he said it was too soon to speculate on the cause of the crash.
“I was told that the plane headed to Aktau airport, where it crashed upon landing, after changing its route between Baku and Grozny due to deteriorating weather conditions,” he said.
An early Wednesday morning request for comment from Embraer was not immediately answered. Azerbaijan Airlines updated its social media banners to solid black and promised to keep the public informed in a statement.
At the Church of Nativity in the West Bank, hundreds of worshippers, both Palestinian and foreign, attended the Midnight Mass.
Due to the ongoing war in Gaza, the Church, which is widely regarded as the birthplace of Jesus, did not have its usual cheering and its walls were not covered with a Christmas tree or decorations.
In attendance at the church was Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the head of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land.
Although the constant hum of Israeli drones continued to reverberate outside, Israeli authorities permitted Cardinal Pizzaballa to make a rare visit to Gaza for the mass in order to celebrate a pre-Christmas Mass with the small Christian community in Gaza.
Speaking about the war, Pizzaballa stated, “We are in a place where divisions are very evident also from the structural point of view. War is terrible with all the consequences of division.”. To go through means that even in situations where there are massive and challenging walls, we can simply get past them if we so choose. “.”.
Pizzaballa went on, “and we want to tell our people not to lose hope, especially for this Christmas.”. The most formidable barrier—the hatred, the division, the disdain, and the absence of justice and dignity that we are facing—can also be broken down. “..”.
The visit to Gaza by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem coincided with Pope Francis’s continued criticism of Israel’s wartime actions.
The historical city of Bethlehem typically sees a spike in tourism during the Christmas season. The city usually benefits greatly from the annual religious celebrations that are shared by the Armenian, Catholic, and Orthodox denominations. Over 70 percent of the city’s annual revenue comes from the more than two million tourists and pilgrims who typically visit the site of Jesus’ birth.
But this year, there are hardly any tourists and the streets are deserted. “The Church of the Holy Land, the Church of Jerusalem, without pilgrims is not complete,” the cardinal stated, expressing his hope that this will be reversed the following year and that pilgrims will once again fill the Holy Land.
“I must admit that Bethlehem always has a lovely Christmas, but this year is the second that we have a sad Bethlehem Christmas,” Pizzaballa remarked.
In keeping with his message of optimism, Pizzaballa states that he hopes to see the city’s largest Christmas tree as well as the celebrations and cheering of this happy time when the holy city is restored.
Bethlehem Mayor Anton Salman is echoing the same message. Salman asserts that the city’s message to the world is one of hope and peace. Salman asserts that in order to reciprocate that message regarding the Palestinian territories, the world must also work.
In order to alleviate our suffering as Palestinians, to put an end to the occupation, to grant us our rights, to give us the chance to achieve our identity, independence, and freedom, and to shield us from the threats posed by the ongoing Israeli occupation, the world must work. “.”.
Though only a small portion of the approximately 14 million people living in the Holy Land are Christians, Bethlehem is a significant location in the history of Christianity.
Five men were given prison terms of up to six months by a Dutch court for the violence that broke out during a football game between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv in November.
On Tuesday, the Amsterdam District Court sentenced two men to one month in prison, one to two and a half months, and one to six months. Community service of 100 hours was required of a fifth defendant.
In the aftermath of the UEFA Europa League match, which sparked a global outcry and allegations of intentional antisemitic attacks, five people were hospitalized and twenty others suffered minor injuries. Over sixty people were taken into custody.
The prosecutor’s office released a statement following the conclusion of hearings two weeks ago, stating that “it appears that the violence arose from strong pro-Palestine sentiments and dissatisfaction with the situation in Gaza, and related anger against the Israelis present.”.
The five defendants, who are all from the Netherlands and range in age from 19 to 32, were charged with assault, theft, and public violence.
After the Netherlands’ counterterrorism watchdog determined that there was no “concrete threat” to Israeli fans and that the match was not deemed to be high risk, the 7 November match was permitted to proceed. Nevertheless, a pro-Palestinian protest outside the Johan Cruyff Arena was prohibited by Amsterdam authorities.
Authorities reported a number of incidents the day before the game, including Israeli fans attacking a taxi and tearing a Palestinian flag from an Amsterdam building, according to an investigation.
Later on, six more suspects—three of whom are minors—will face trial. Juvenile proceedings in the Netherlands are conducted behind closed doors.
Police have released pictures of a number of suspects they wish to identify as part of their ongoing investigation into the incidents, which began in early November.
