Opposition blasts Netanyahu & gov’t over flydubai failures, demands resignation of Transportation Min Regev

With the election campaign entering the home stretch after the Oct. 7 memorials, Israel’s opposition leaders are ramping up their criticism of the government, citing the failures surrounding the attempt to hijack an Israel-bound plane as another example of the government’s incompetency.

Several media reports in recent days suggested that Transportation Ministry under the leadership of Minister Miri Regev (Likud) failed to conduct thorough background checks for flight crews flying into Israel.

This is despite the ministry having agreed to assume this responsibility over the warnings of some of its own officials, and despite a March 2025 report by the National Security Council (NSC) concluding that the ministry wasn’t fulfilling this task.

The issue now threatens to become a major focus for the last period of the election campaign, as People of Israel party leader Ofer Winter joined major opposition leaders by criticizing the government from the right.

Speaking near Ben Gurion Airport on the occasion of the third anniversary of Oct. 7 on Sunday, the retired general said, “Three years after the terrible massacre, and it seems that the State of Israel refuses to learn the lesson. Here, a flight full of Israelis and civilians could have crashed here at the airport. We were a hair’s breadth away from the biggest terrorist attack in the history of the state. Israel’s 9/11.”

“Just as on October 7, this time too, the people who saved the situation were heroic civilians… On the other hand, we are once again returning to the familiar tune. ‘He didn’t know, no one warned him, they are to blame.’ One wants to throw out the Shin Bet chief, another is distancing herself from part of the failure,” Winter charged.

“And in the end, there is no one taking responsibility. One who says — I was wrong. Instead, they are trying to divert attention to other things through bizarre spin. Maybe this incident will be forgotten, maybe we will change the agenda and the public will not notice that no one is checking or investigating.”

Gadi Eisenkot, whose Yashar party continues to lead most opinion polls, accused the government of Prime Minister Bejnamin Netanyahu of not having learned the lessons of Oct. 7.

“In a proper and functioning government, the Transportation Minister would have submitted a resignation letter yesterday evening. Since she did not do so, the Prime Minister would have fired her immediately. In a properly functioning country, the Prime Minister would have ordered today the establishment of a strong, independent external commission of inquiry, and summoned all relevant officeholders to give an account,” Eisenkot argued.

He further blamed Netanyahu for a “culture of lies, cover-ups, and evasion of responsibility.”

Former Prime Minister and Together party chairman Naftali Bennett agreed, noting that “any reasonable government would have treated this incident as if a plane had crashed and 174 Israelis had been murdered.”

“Instead of drawing lessons to prevent the next disaster, Netanyahu and Miri Regev are celebrating the failure that occurred on their watch,” Bennett said.

The number three on Together’s list is Keren Turner, a former director general of the Transportation Ministry. Turner slammed Regev as the main figure responsible for the failure.

“For a few more powers and a few more jobs, Miri Regev chose to endanger all of our lives,” Turner said. “She is the one who chose to make a decision contrary to the positions of the Shin Bet and the National Security Council, and who decided to ignore a severe State Comptroller’s report that states clearly: The Transportation Ministry’s security division does not have the ability to meet the required security objectives.”

The ministry responded to the criticism by disputing reports that the responsibility for security arrangements in foreign aviation entering Israel had only recently been transferred to it. “It is important to emphasize that the National Security Council and the security agencies approved the Security Division’s procedures,” it argued.

“Flydubai was given explicit instructions, committed to carrying out the required background checks for its crews, and notified in writing that it had incorporated the nationality restrictions on flights to Israel into its crew scheduling system. The crew list for flight FZ1073 was not received by the Ministry of Transport, and the Security Division does not have access to flight lists.”

On Sunday, Netanyahu instructed National Security Council head Shmuel Ben Ezra “to appoint an examiner to conduct a thorough review of all security aspects of foreign civil aviation to Israel,” the Prime Minister’s Office said.

For now, Channel 12 reported that the Transportation Ministry issued tightened rules for foreign airlines flying to Israel, barring crew members from countries without formal diplomatic relations with Israel from operating or even traveling on Israel-bound flights.

This includes crew members from 27 countries, including Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, among others.