Israel will review security on international flights after Flydubai case

“ Netanyahu instructed the director of the National Security Council, Shmuel Ben Ezra, to appoint a person responsible for conducting a comprehensive review of all aspects related to foreign civil aviation security to Israel,” said the Prime Minister’s office in a statement.

The incident happened last Wednesday, when the two pilots of the flight that made the route between Dubai (United Arab Emirates) and Tel Aviv (Israel) confronted in the cabin, which caused a crash of the plane of 5,000 meters in less than 30 seconds, generating panic on board and leading to emergency alerts.

A further investigation by the UAE prosecutor concluded that the copilot attempted to attack the pilot and divert the plane, initiating “the execution of a terrorist attack”.

Oman's co-pilot had already been prevented from flying in his country because of suspicions of extremist behaviour.

According to Army Radio (“Galei Tzahal” in Hebrew), the Israeli Ministry of Transport received warnings from several Israeli agencies indicating deficiencies in the supervision of foreign pilots flying to the country.

Quoting confidential documents, the radio said that in 2025 and 2024 the Ministry was alerted to the lack of compliance with its responsibilities regarding aviation security.

At the beginning of the decade, in 2021, the safety oversight of foreign pilots was transferred from Shin Bet (Israel's internal information service) to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which is accountable to the Ministry of Transport.

In 2024, he referred to ‘Galei Tzahal’, the state controller issued a report stating that the Ministry of Transport was not complying with the decision.

The report led to the creation in that year of a National Security Council team, together with the Ministry of Transport, the CAA, Shin Bet, Mossad (the Israeli Secret Service) and the Ministry of Finance, to review the country's aviation security system and implement changes.

After a year of discussions, the Prime Minister determined that responsibility for the matter would be transferred unequivocally to the Ministry of Transport which had no resources for the task but never asked Shin Bet or Mossad for help.

Israeli security guidelines forbid pilots from countries with which Israel does not maintain diplomatic relations, such as Oman, from flying to Israel.