Israeli team in UAE to question pilot; intel failure revealed

A special Israeli investigative team has arrived in the United Arab Emirates in recent days, after Omani co-pilot Homam al-Hamami was transferred there from Saudi Arabia for continued questioning into the attempted attack on the Fly Dubai flight. Alongside the international cooperation, disturbing details are emerging about the intelligence failure that allowed the incident to occur in the first place.

Israel received in advance the full list of crew members and passengers on the flight in which al-Hamami, 28, born to a Syrian mother and Omani father, planned to crash the aircraft into Israeli territory.

The Security Division of the Transportation Ministry and the Mossad were responsible for monitoring and screening foreign flight crews. But in practice, security sources said, this is an empty framework: the responsibility exists "on paper only," since the Transportation Ministry has no independent intelligence capabilities whatsoever. "Those capabilities exist only in the Mossad or the Shin Bet," the sources clarified. The Shin Bet, for its part, argued in its defense that it is responsible only for securing Israeli airlines and Ben Gurion Airport.

A law passed in 2023 (and a system that collapsed)

The scandal deepens in light of government legislation passed by the Knesset already in 2023. Under the law on "Powers for Collection and Analysis of Passenger Data," a dedicated center was established in the Tax Authority designed to examine the lists of passengers and crew entering Israel in advance, in order to "identify among them those who may pose a potential security risk."

The law requires airlines to transmit complete data, including name and citizenship, 48 hours in advance. This fact should have immediately raised a red flag due to the pilot's Omani citizenship. Yet despite the legislation, the information dissolved between the ministries, and Israeli screening systems collapsed moments before disaster.

The Saudi Interior Ministry reported that the captain and co-pilot from the Fly Dubai flight were transferred to the Emirates under Emirati security escort. According to reports, the Emiratis participated in the interrogation in Saudi Arabia, and the initial investigation indicates that the co-pilot attacked the captain, leading to both being injured.

Netanyahu at Ben Gurion Airport with Yaniv Hiyun

Israel is expected to be involved in the investigation, as part of the security and intelligence cooperation between Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi. The Prime Minister's Office and the Justice Ministry are working to get their hands on the Omani co-pilot. As long as he remained in Saudi territory, a country with which Israel has no official diplomatic relations, officials at the political level understood that the chances of extradition directly from there were low.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu provided an update on the investigation and revealed that "as time passes, the picture becomes clearer, the terrorist underwent Islamist radicalization. He came to crash the plane with its passengers." Netanyahu added: "We are investigating whether he was sent, and whoever sent him will pay a very heavy price."

Anwar Gargash, advisor to the president of the United Arab Emirates, called the attempt to crash the Fly Dubai flight "an act of terror." This is the first time the Emirates has officially defined the act as terrorism.