Greek Aegean Airlines issued an apology statement on Tuesday for an incident occurred on Sunday in which a group of Israeli Jewish passengers refused to fly with Palestinians on board accusing them of being “terrorists”, according to Israel national news website.

The airline said it would like to “thank again the two passengers who agreed to disembark for their understanding and collaboration and we apologize for the whole episode which was indeed extremely unfortunate.”

The incident occurred on Sunday on an Aegean Airlines flight from Athens to Tel Aviv causing a two-hours delay.

The Israeli passengers had “very vocally and persistently asked for two other Israeli passengers to be checked for security issues”, Aegean Airlines spokesperson said.

After completing the security checks, “a much larger group of passengers” began then asking the two Arabs passengers to be removed from the plane despite assurances from staff.

The two passengers, though, agreed to disembark from the plane and take a flight back to Israel the following morning.

The Palestinian passengers were offered a free hotel and flight the following day, which they accepted, and their luggage was taken out of the hold.