Prior to attack, Shin Bet didn’t enforce ban on pilots from unfriendly states — report

Israeli security agencies were negligent in enforcing a ban on pilots from states that lack relations with Jerusalem, a gap exposed by yesterday’s attack on the flydubai flight, Channel 12 reports.

The attack, which was thwarted by Israeli passengers, the captain and other pilots on board, was perpetrated by the plane’s Omani copilot.

Oman does not have relations with Israel. The Abraham Accords, which established diplomatic ties between Israel and the UAE in 2020, bar pilots from flying into Israel if their countries do not have relations with Jerusalem.

But despite that provision, Channel 12 reports that Israel has allowed dozens of Omani pilots to fly into Israel in recent years. It adds that Israel has ceded oversight of that prohibition, trusting the foreign airlines to enforce it.

The report, citing the investigation into the attack, says the Shin Bet security service never examined the origins of flydubai’s pilots, beyond asking the airline not to use pilots from states that lack ties with Israel. The Transportation Ministry said in a statement to the network that the Shin Bet never issued a specific warning regarding threats from flydubai, beyond asking for increased baggage checks.

“The Shin Bet has all the means to know, within five minutes, who all of the pilots on the Dubai airline are, and they simply chose to turn a blind eye,” the network quotes an anonymous airline industry official as saying. “In Israel, they expected the airline to be reliable enough, so they didn’t conduct reviews in recent years.”

The report also cites a 2024 recommendation from the State Comptroller’s Office instructing the government to review security protocols in all matters relating to air travel.