Eisenkot, Bennett demand Regev’s ouster over security failures exposed by flydubai attack

Opposition leaders stepped up calls on Sunday for Transportation Minister Miri Regev to resign or be fired over her ministry’s failure to prevent last week’s attack by an Omani copilot aboard a flydubai flight to Tel Aviv.

The demands came as the attempted terror attack on flydubai Flight 1073 prompted mounting scrutiny of Israel’s oversight of foreign airlines, including reports that senior Israeli bodies had warned for years that the Transportation Ministry was not properly carrying out its obligatory security checks on foreign flights, including oversight of their pilots.

“From the moment the scale of the failure began to emerge, the leadership, as is its custom, disappeared. In a worthy, properly functioning government, [Regev] would have submitted her resignation yesterday evening. Since she did not, the prime minister should have fired her immediately,” Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot said in a statement on Sunday.

“This kind of leadership endangers Israel and directly endangers its citizens. They have learned absolutely nothing from October 7. Anyone who refuses to investigate and runs from responsibility out of fear cannot prevent the next disaster,” he continued.

Former prime minister and B’Yachad party leader Naftali Bennett similarly said Sunday that “any prime minister who cared about Israel’s security would demand answers from his transportation minister and throw [Regev] out.”

He added that the public urgently deserves answers: “Is it safe or dangerous to fly to Israel? Have Iranian pilots been traveling to Israel recently? And what exactly is the government doing now to prevent the next failure?”

Both leaders drew a direct connection between the flydubai failure and the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 invasion of southern Israel, arguing that the government’s failure to prevent the two attacks, as well as its refusal to investigate and accept responsibility, reflected the same failures of leadership. Israel will mark the third anniversary of the Hamas-led attacks, which killed 1,200 people, on Wednesday.

The government, Regev and the Transportation Ministry have denied responsibility for any security breach preceding the flydubai incident, in which copilot Hamam al-Hammami stabbed the pilot and allegedly sought to crash the plane with its 180 passengers, almost all of them Israeli, and crew. Passengers overpowered Hammami, after the pilot managed to open the cockpit even as he was being attacked, and two off-duty pilots who were onboard then made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.

The Haaretz newspaper and the Channel 12 TV network both reported Sunday evening that Regev and the ministry ignored repeated warnings from the Shin Bet about security on Israel-bound foreign flights.

According to Haaretz, citing figures involved in the security of inbound flights, the Shin Bet had recommended that the responsibility for overseeing the security of foreign flights be passed from the Transportation Ministry to the Israel Airports Authority and the Civil Aviation Authority.

The newspaper reported that the Transportation Ministry nevertheless opposed such a move and ignored the Shin Bet warnings. Channel 12 reported that three such warnings were passed to Regev in recent months, but no action was taken.

The ministry and some of its officials said on Saturday and Sunday that it does not have the capacity to perform background checks on foreign pilots, and that there is no way to definitively ensure the security of foreign flights into Israel. But the ministry is responsible for overseeing foreign airlines’ vetting of pilots flying into and out of Israel.

Netanyahu on Sunday instructed National Security Council head Shmuel Ben Ezra to appoint an examiner to conduct a thorough review of “all aspects” of the security arrangements for foreign civilian flights to Israel, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.

Key officials with other jobs

Hebrew media reports highlighted potential issues regarding two key figures in the ministry’s air transportation security offices.

Haaretz revealed that the Transportation Ministry’s security chief, Avri Cohen, also works a second job. The outlet said that Cohen, whose position includes oversight of foreign air crews, has his attention divided, as he sometimes moonlights as a “reserve security officer” for Israeli airlines at a foreign airport.

The paper noted that the work is entirely separate from Cohen’s responsibilities at the ministry, and he is paid for it separately.

The revelations raised questions about Cohen’s focus on his job, which recent days have shown is critical for Israelis’ security.

In a second case, Channel 12 reported that Dvir Rubinstein, the Transportation Ministry official responsible for security oversight of foreign airlines flying to Israel, has also done paid private consulting and training work for those carriers, including flydubai and Emirates.

Rubinstein, who has served as the ministry’s aviation security director for 19 years, is responsible for granting security approvals and permits to foreign airlines and flights entering Israel, according to a professional biography cited by the Hebrew network. His responsibilities include oversight of flydubai and its Dubai-Tel Aviv route, on which last week’s terror attack took place.

Channel 12 reported that Rubinstein traveled to the UAE in a private capacity to provide training and consulting to flydubai as well as Emirates, and displayed certificates from the airlines recognizing training that he provided. The network noted the apparent conflict of interest in Rubinstein doing private work for airlines he is tasked with overseeing.

It also aired footage from what it said was a webinar by Rubinstein on lessons the US learned from the September 11 attacks, during which he says the attacks “taught us that it is possible to hijack an aircraft without explosives, without weapons,” and that US authorities therefore screen aircrew in advance, including through background checks conducted before departure.

“There is no such thing as passenger lists not being checked in advance,” Rubinstein says in the footage. “Today, aircrew as well… undergo security screening, including a background check, as well as physical screening prior to departure.”

At a Transportation Ministry briefing on Saturday, by contrast, Rubinstein reportedly said his department does not conduct intelligence background checks on foreign crews.

“We are not an intelligence agency that conducts intelligence background checks on crews. The security division is not the Shin Bet. We don’t have security personnel abroad,” he was quoted saying, explaining that Israel relies on airlines, foreign governments and competent authorities in countries of origin.

Rubinstein declined the network’s request for comment. The Transportation Ministry said in a statement to Channel 12 that Rubinstein “provides services to the Transportation Ministry in an outsourcing capacity and is not a civil servant. His additional business has been approved by law and is carried out outside of his working hours as part of his contract with the ministry.”

Tightened regulations

Meanwhile, the Transportation Ministry issued what appeared to be tightened rules for foreign airlines flying to Israel, barring crew members who hold citizenship in countries without formal diplomatic relations with Israel from operating or even traveling aboard Israel-bound flights, Channel 12 reported, noting that, until now, it had failed to effectively enforce such regulations.

Pilots and other aircrew holding citizenship from countries including Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Pakistan have repeatedly flown into Israel in recent years, according to the network.

In recordings of a conversation earlier Sunday between senior officials aired by Channel 12, an Interior Ministry official told a Transportation Ministry official that while his ministry routinely receives the passenger and flight crew lists from the country where the flight originates for security review, “in fact, [these lists arrive] only after the plane has taken off.”

The report said that on Sunday afternoon the ministry sent a notice to foreign carriers, including US airlines, stating that citizens of 27 countries are not only barred from piloting planes to or from Israel, but are also barred from being on board flights to and from Israel. The 27 countries covered in the notice include Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, according to an image of the notice shared by the network.

The notice also said that crew members holding single or dual citizenship from any of these countries who have already been assigned to an Israel flight should contact their airline’s crew scheduling department as soon as possible.