Netanyahu confirms flydubai pilot conducted stabbing, praises passengers’ heroism at Ben-Gurion
Later, Netanyahu was filmed at the airport embracing one of the passengers who helped neutralize the attacker on the plane, who was still wearing a blood-stained shirt.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks with one of the passengers from the hijhacked flydubai flight at Ben-Gurion Airport on September 30, 2026.(photo credit: KOBI GIDEON/GPO)ByMAYA ZANGER-SHAMIR, KESHET NEEVSEPTEMBER 30, 2026 16:30Updated: SEPTEMBER 30, 2026 20:23
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement to the public on Wednesday afternoon following the suspected hijacking incident involving a flydubai plane meant to land in Tel Aviv earlier in the day, confirming that one of the pilots had carried out a stabbing attack.
See Haaretz analysis:
Analysis
Netanyahu Should Be Careful Claiming Foresight Over a Threat He Failed to Prevent
As his allies cast Wednesday’s suspected terror incident as proof of Netanyahu’s prudence, they raise a more troubling possibility: Israel either failed to act on credible intelligence or is exploiting an isolated incident for political gain.
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.null
Six years ago, Israelis were offered a promising new destination for travel and trade: the United Arab Emirates, which had just normalised diplomatic relations with Israel under a US-brokered deal.
Dubai government-owned Flydubai provided a budget choice for the three-and-a-half-hour trip. When many foreign carriers suspended flights to Israel in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack and the ensuing regional conflicts, Emirati airlines mostly kept flying. And many Israelis felt the highly security-conscious UAE was a safer place to holiday than Europe.
But Wednesday’s extraordinary brawl aboard a Tel Aviv-bound Flydubai plane has come as a shock to Israelis who increasingly viewed the UAE as a safe haven in a region where they have few friends.
One pilot on the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv stabbed the other and attempted to crash the aircraft, according to witnesses and officials, forcing an emergency landing after the plane plunged 20,000 feet in a matter of minutes.
Known as the Abraham Accords and also signed by three other Arab states, the 2020 peace agreement formalised quiet but long-running commercial links between the UAE and Israel.
These have grown since the deal was struck, with bilateral trade surpassing $3bn per year in 2024, according to Israeli data, up to 25 flights per day at times, and a growing population of Israelis living in the UAE. A handful of known Israeli businesses operate, from bakeries to fintech companies, and Israeli tourists throng Dubai hotels such as the Atlantis The Royal.
The UAE has become Israel’s closest Arab ally. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Abu Dhabi on Sunday to meet UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan. The two discussed “ways to strengthen ties”, according to the UAE state news agency, in the first acknowledgment of Netanyahu coming to the UAE.
Retired, living in the Scottish Borders after living most of my life in cities in England. I can now indulge my interest in all aspects of living close to nature in a wild landscape. I live on what was once the Iapetus Ocean which took millions of years to travel from the Southern Hemisphere to here in the Northern Hemisphere. That set me thinking and questioning and seeking answers.
In 1998 I co-wrote Millennium Countdown (US)/ A Business Guide to the Year 2000 (UK) see https://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780749427917
