In Minsk, the foreign ministry's spokesman said Belarus had acted in line with international regulations and a senior transport official read out what he said was the text of the bomb threat.
"We, the soldiers of Hamas, demand that Israel cease fire in the Gaza Strip. We demand that the European Union withdraw its support for Israel in this war," said the head of the transport ministry's aviation department.
"There is a bomb on that plane. If you do not comply with our demands, the bomb will explode over Vilnius on 23 May," he said.
With a completely straight face, the Belarusian transport ministry claims:– the Ryanair "bomb threat" came from Hamas– Hamas didn't send it to the Vilnius airport, but Minsk, a totally different one not on the flight path– they demanded a ceasefire two days after it happened pic.twitter.com/vmUVYpvzBh
— max seddon (@maxseddon) May 24, 2021
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum denied his group had any knowledge or connection. He said the group "has nothing to do with that completely."
"We don’t resort to these methods, which could be the doing of some suspicious parties that aim to demonize Hamas and foil the state of world sympathy with our Palestinian people and their legitimate resistance," Barhoum said.
This comes three days after Israel and Hamas accepted the ceasefire agreement to end 11 days of rocket-fire and violence in the Gaza Strip and Israel.Reuters contributed to this report.