Top officials warned for years that Transportation Ministry was not properly vetting foreign flights – report

Senior Israeli bodies have been warning for years that the Transportation Ministry has not been meeting its responsibilities in performing security checks on foreign airlines flying into Israel, Army Radio reports, citing internal National Security Council documents.

In 2021, the security cabinet removed responsibility from the Shin Bet, and ruled that the Transportation Ministry’s Civil Aviation Authority “will check that the security instructions in the foreign countries that are not classified as highest risk meet the regulations of international treaties.”

A classified 2024 state comptroller report found that the ministry was not meeting its obligations, according to a document shared by Army Radio.

On May 23, 2024, the security cabinet ordered the NSC to establish a team within 90 days composed of representatives of the Transportation Ministry, the CAA, Shin Bet, Mossad, and Finance Ministry to “examine the security framework for international commercial flights into Israel, and to put together recommendations for changes.”

In those discussions, which went on for a year, the Shin Bet stressed that it did not have the manpower or budget to handle security checks for foreign flights.

The NSC concurred, writing that “it is appropriate for the Transportation Ministry to fulfill its responsibility over foreign flights… in order for the Civil Aviation Authority to be able to take responsibility for the matter, it will require appropriate manpower and budget.”

CAA head Shmuel Zakai agreed, according to the NSC documents.

However, the Transportation Ministry’s security chief, Avri Cohen, fired back that the ministry cannot take on such a large security challenge, and fumed at Zakai for agreeing to something that “you know is too big for you,” says Army Radio.

There are only three civil servants in the ministry’s Security Division, per the report, and the rest — dozens of employees — are civilian contractors.

“The entire professional team at the Transportation Ministry strongly opposed the transfer of authorities, except for the head of the Civil Aviation Authority, Shmuel Zakai,” a source involved in the discussions tells Army Radio. “They all stood up and told Minister Miri Regev that it would be a grave mistake to take on such a huge responsibility.”

They told her that the ministry would have no way of knowing that a Syrian migrant to the United Kingdom who flies to Israel grew up in an enemy state.

“There were harsh explosions, confrontations, and sharp letters, but Minister Regev, CEO [Moshe] Ben Zaken, and CAA head Zakai didn’t listen,” the source continues. “The minister went with Zakai’s position, and in the meeting they had with the prime minister, they came out of the discussion with the responsibility transferred to the Transportation Ministry.”

In 2025, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indeed determined that security responsibility for foreign flights would be fully transferred to the Transportation Ministry, according to Army Radio.

In March of the same year, the NSC offered its own warning in a written document that the Transportation Ministry was not fulfilling its role in overseeing security checks of foreign flights.

Despite the self-acknowledged lack of resources in the ministry, it didn’t ask the Shin Bet or Mossad for help in investigating a single passenger or crew member, says the outlet.

The two intelligence agencies knew that the Transportation Ministry was in over its head, but didn’t move to fill the gap, per the report.

“The Shin Bet and Mossad knew full well that the Transportation Ministry was in pieces, that it had no people, no positions, and no capabilities,” a source says. “How did they just shrug off responsibility like that and dump everything on the Transportation Ministry? The responsibility lies with the Transportation Ministry — but the Shin Bet and Mossad also enabled this failure, and the writing was on the wall.”

The Transportation Ministry calls the claims “completely false.”

It says the ministry’s responsibility for foreign flights has been in place for decades, and that “presenting it as a new task transferred to the ministry in recent years is incorrect.”

The ministry adds that the NSC and other security bodies approved the ministry’s procedures.

“Two committees that operated in the past under the chairmanship of the National Security Council recommended the establishment of a state authority for aviation security, which would be responsible for all flights,” the response continues. “The Transportation Ministry supported and still supports the establishment of such a comprehensive body, but the recommendations were not implemented.”