Israel just got caught missing a hijacker it already had the name of

Israel got the full crew list for a FlyDubai flight five days ago. And it still didn't flag the co-pilot.

His own government already knew about him.

Here's the story. FlyDubai flight FZ1073 flew from Dubai to Tel Aviv five days ago, on 30 September. The co-pilot was an Omani national named Hamam al-Hammami. He attacked the Indian captain, Smit Machchhar, with the cockpit's crash axe. He tried to take control of the plane.

The captain was hurt. But he still got the cockpit door open. Passengers and off-duty crew pulled the attacker off him. The plane made an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.

So how many people were on board? Nobody agrees. CBS says 172. Al Jazeera and the Jerusalem Post say 174. AP and ABC say 182. Nobody has fixed that number yet.

Now here's the part that matters. Al-Hammami used to work for Oman Air. Oman's own government found he'd been visiting extremist websites. They pulled him off flying duty and put him at a desk. He resigned around 2024. Then FlyDubai hired him.

And here's the thing. CBS News reports FlyDubai never checked with the Omani government before hiring him. A Gulf diplomat told the Associated Press that al-Hammami only went through standard checks for criminal convictions, nothing on his past.

But Israel had another chance to catch this. Under a 2023 law, airlines send Israel the full crew and passenger list, including nationalities, up to 48 hours before every flight. Israel's Tax Authority got that list. And according to the Associated Press, Israel did not flag a single passenger or crew member.

So who was supposed to catch it? Israeli security sources told Haaretz that job sits with the Transportation Ministry's Security Department and the Mossad. Miri Regev, Israel's Transportation Minister, posted on X that security agencies handle flight security, not her ministry, and that she was never given a passenger list or any warning. Dvir Rubenstien, who runs aviation security at the ministry, told Army Radio his team simply doesn't have the tools to check every passenger on every flight.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's Prime Minister, said on 4 October that he's ordered a security review of flights into Israel. He said Israel has long-standing deals with foreign airlines to stop pilots from countries with no diplomatic ties to Israel from flying there at all. He called what happened a loophole, and says Israel will close it.

So here's the real question nobody has answered. Was this a screening failure? A breakdown between Israeli agencies? Or a policy gap that let a flagged man through anyway?