‘We heard screams, the plane dived’: Suspicion pilot on flydubai flight to Tel Aviv tried to crash plane

Video shows passengers clapping and singing as flydubai plane lands in Saudi Arabia

Hebrew media outlets have published a video purportedly from the flydubai plane as it landed in Saudi Arabia, showing passengers celebrating, clapping and singing as the aircraft comes down for a landing following a violent altercation in the cockpit.

״עוד אבינו חי״: הנוסעים במטוס ברגעי הנחיתה pic.twitter.com/wALLq5AluW

Advertisement

— ישראל היום (@IsraelHayomHeb) September 30, 2026

Reports: Israeli officials increasingly believe flydubai emergency was terror

Channel 12 and Ynet report that there is a growing assessment in Israel that the emergency on board the flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv was an attempted terror attack, though it still can’t say so definitively.

The flight landed in Saudi Arabia after a violent altercation in the cockpit.

Intensive conversations are taking place in Israel right now about the flight, Channel 12 says.

Unconfirmed reports in Hebrew media say the copilot, an Omani, is being investigated on the ground by Saudi authorities, after allegedly stabbing the captain, an Emirati, and attempting to crash the plane.

At the same time, other options are being looked into, including a mental health episode that was not nationalistic in nature.

There has not yet been an official statement on the circumstances of the incident by Israeli, Saudi or Emirati authorities.

High Court to hear cases against bans on Arab parties, candidates tomorrow

The High Court of Justice will hold hearings tomorrow on the Central Elections Committee’s decisions last week to disqualify the two Arab parties — Ra’am and the Joint List — as well as Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh and Hadash MK Ofer Cassif from running in the October 27 election.

The cases will be heard by an expanded panel of nine justices, beginning with Abu Shehadeh at 10 a.m., followed by Cassif at 11:30 a.m., the Joint List at 2 p.m. and Ra’am at 3:30 p.m.

CEC decisions to disqualify individual candidates require Supreme Court approval, while bans on party slates can be appealed to the court, which has historically set a high bar for disqualification and repeatedly overturned such decisions by the committee.

Most of the rulings are expected to be overturned with the exception of Abu Shehadeh, whose case is less clear-cut. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara backed his disqualification over an article he published a day after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack that she said expressed support for armed struggle against Israel. CEC chairman and Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg as well as parties across the Zionist opposition also supported barring him.

The Adalah rights group, which is representing the parties and candidates, argues that the CEC decisions “disregard the Supreme Court’s binding case law and rest on irrelevant, outdated or distorted evidence.” It also accuses the body of applying a discriminatory double standard by disqualifying every Arab slate while allowing far-right parties, including far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism, to run despite “extensive evidence of explicit incitement to violence against Palestinians.”

Separately, Yair Golan’s left-wing Democrats party is petitioning the High Court to overturn the CEC’s decision to allow Otzma Yehudit to run, arguing that the party should be disqualified for ostensibly negating Israel’s existence as a democratic state and inciting racism.

Report: Pilots in civilian clothes saved flydubai flight

There was a second team of pilots in civilian clothes on the flydubai plane that made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, Channel 12 reports. They are the passengers who prevented one of the pilots from taking over the plane, according to the outlet.

A senior Israeli official tells the outlet that if the pilots had not been on the plane, the incident could have ended in another September 11, 2001, attack or 1976 Entebbe hostage incident.

The report is not confirmed.

According to the Walla news outlet, the pilot under investigation is Omani.

Reform Judaism head slams Jerusalem mayor for not condemning attacks on synagogue

The head of the Union for Reform Judaism has called on Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion to publicly condemn a series of attacks against Kol HaNeshama, a Reform synagogue in the capital, after the congregation was targeted for the fourth time in a month.

The latest incident occurred on Yom Kippur, when an intruder entered the synagogue between the Kol Nidre service and the following morning’s prayers and removed a Pride flag from the sanctuary. Earlier incidents included a smashed window and vandalism, eggs being thrown at worshipers on Rosh Hashanah, and other damage.

“Any single attack should be enough to spur vocal condemnation from you and other authorities,” writes Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the movement, in an open letter.

He notes that when a shooter opened fire outside Sons of Jacob Synagogue ⁠in Belleville, Ontario, during Yom Kippur, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and others condemned the attack.

Israeli officials also offered support when Central Synagogue in Manhattan had an assailant rush the Bima during a Shabbat service, he says.

“Yet, amidst repeated attacks on Kol HaNeshama, you and other officials up to and including the prime minister, have yet to raise your voices,” Jacobs writes. “The fact that four such attacks have happened without a single public expression of concern or opposition from you is simply and terribly wrong.”

Last week, President Isaac Herzog called leaders of the synagogue to express solidarity following the attack.

Herzog to deliver statement in West Bank about settler violence

Amid ongoing settler violence in the West Bank, President Isaac Herzog will visit the Judea and Samaria Division headquarters near Beit El, his office says.

He will meet with Division Commander Brig. Gen. Kobi Heller, and will deliver a statement.

Yesterday, Herzog said law enforcement authorities must act “decisively” against settlement extremists who rioted overnight in the West Bank village of Jalud, torching property, clashing with troops and preventing a Palestinian family from returning to the home they were violently evicted from.

Writing on X, Herzog called the violence “of utmost severity” and said it was a “moral stain [and] an attack on the rule of law and our most basic values as a nation.”

Report: PM shared intel on Iran nuclear progress during Abu Dhabi meeting with Emirati leader

During their Abu Dhabi meeting on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed new Israeli intelligence showing that Iran is making progress on its nuclear program, CNN reports, citing an Israeli source with knowledge of the meeting.

Among the details Netanyahu shared was intelligence showing evidence of new construction at Pickaxe Mountain, the under-construction Iranian nuclear site buried deep under a mountain.

The site, known as Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, or “Pickaxe Mountain,” lies on the south side of Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment site, which was bombed by the United States during Operation Midnight Hammer in 2025’s 12-day war between Iran and Israel.

Pickaxe Mountain has not been struck.