Yasser Arafat International Airport (Arabic: مطار ياسر عرفات الدولي Maṭār Yāsir 'Arafāt ad-Dawli) (IATA: GZA, ICAO: LVGZ), formerly Gaza International Airport and Dahaniya International Airport, is located in the Gaza Strip, in between Rafah and Dahaniya, close to the Egyptian border.
It is owned, and was operated, by the Palestinian Authority, and served as the home airport for Palestinian Airlines. The airport was able to handle 700,000 passengers per year and operated 24 hours and 364 days a year (closed on Yom Kippur). The airport opened in 1998, but it closed in 2001 after being severely damaged by Israeli military forces. Its destruction left Gaza Airstrip as the only serviceable runway in the Gaza Strip.
On 22 July 2010, 7,203 Gazan children between the ages of 6 and 15 participated in setting a new Guinness World Record for the simultaneous dribbling of basketballs on the airport's undamaged tarmac ramp. Three weeks later, in August 2010, the tarmac ramp was destroyed by Palestinians seeking stones and recycled building materials for reconstruction of the Gaza Strip after the Gaza War.
Read more about Yasser Arafat International Airport: History, Runways, Buildings and Terminal, Ground Transportation, Airlines, Air Traffic Control
Famous quotes containing the words arafat and/or airport:
“Whoever thinks of stopping the uprising before it achieves its goals, I will give him ten bullets in the chest.”
—Yasir Arafat (b. 1929)
“Airplanes are invariably scheduled to depart at such times as 7:54, 9:21 or 11:37. This extreme specificity has the effect on the novice of instilling in him the twin beliefs that he will be arriving at 10:08, 1:43 or 4:22, and that he should get to the airport on time. These beliefs are not only erroneous but actually unhealthy.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950)