Flydubai payments to Israeli air security official revealed as Trump points finger at Ir

Israeli authorities increasingly believe that the Omani co-pilot accused of attempting to crash a Flydubai airliner acted alone, even as US President Donald Trump continues to suggest Iran may have been behind the attack.

Asked if he thought Iran was responsible, Trump replied: “Yes, personally. » He has previously suggested a possible connection to Iran based on information he said he had heard, but has not publicly presented evidence. Israeli investigators, meanwhile, have not yet established any Iranian or other links to the suspect, Hamam al-Hammami.

Al-Hammami is accused of attacking the captain of flydubai flight FZ1073 with a rescue ax and attempting to take control of the Dubai-Tel Aviv flight on September 30. Passengers intervened after the injured captain managed to open the cockpit door, and the plane eventually landed safely in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. The United Arab Emirates called the incident a terrorist attack.

The attack intensified surveillance of Israel’s security system for foreign airlines and screening of crews entering the country. New questions have also emerged over possible conflicts of interest involving senior aviation safety officials at the Transport Ministry.

Dvir Rubinstein, one of the founders and current director of the ministry’s Aviation Security Operations Center, known by its Hebrew acronym MAMLAT, is not a civil servant. He provides services to the Ministry of Transport as an external contractor whilst also running a private company which provides consultancy and training services to airlines including flydubai and Emirates.

This arrangement means that Rubinstein received a private payment from flydubai while occupying a central role in the Israeli system responsible for handling security matters involving foreign airlines, including flydubai.

MAMLAT serves as the Ministry of Transportation’s operational center for aviation security and occupies a key position in the mechanism by which Israel approves and supervises security arrangements for foreign airlines operating flights to the country. She regularly works with airlines and government agencies in Israel and abroad.

In his role, Rubinstein is responsible for the security approvals and permits required by airlines and flights seeking to enter Israel, both in advance and in real time. This makes him one of the main officials maintaining direct contact with foreign airlines and handling security issues related to their operations in Israel.

This arrangement has created a situation in which an official responsible, through MAMLAT, for security matters involving foreign airlines also maintains private business relationships with airlines within his sphere of professional responsibility.

The Department of Transportation said Rubinstein’s outside activities were properly authorized and conducted outside of the hours he provides services to the department. The ministry has not yet specifically responded to questions about his private work for airlines falling within his professional responsibilities or the implications of those relationships for his role at MAMLAT.

The attempted takeover of the flydubai flight exposed what officials and previous government studies have described as a broader structural problem in Israel’s security system for foreign aviation rather than an isolated failure.

At the center of the conflict is an increasingly entrenched position among Ministry of Transportation professionals: the ministry’s Security, Emergencies and Cybersecurity Division does not have the intelligence capabilities, resources or tools necessary to assume responsibility for the security of foreign flights entering Israel.

These concerns predate the arrival of the current government.

During the tenure of former Transport Minister Merav Michaeli and former Ministry Director General Michal Frank, ministry professionals officially raised the issue. Frank held at least three specific meetings with the National Security Council in which she warned that the Department of Transportation was not equipped to take on this responsibility.

The National Security Council, however, continued to oppose a change in this arrangement and interagency conflict persisted. Government decisions aimed at clarifying the distribution of responsibilities and creating a central coordinating body were not implemented for two years.

As government agencies argued over jurisdiction, aviation and cybersecurity were identified as among the most exposed areas of the security system, according to officials familiar with the discussions.

Organizational problems also extended within the safety division of the Ministry of Transportation.

Questions have arisen regarding Cohen’s outside employment in private security while he headed the division responsible for protecting the nation’s transportation infrastructure. An arrangement allowing him to undertake the outside work had faced resistance under Michaeli and raised questions about possible conflicts of interest and priorities. It emerged Monday that the approval process was never finalized.

Concerns about foreign aviation security were raised again after Transport Minister Miri Regev and the ministry’s director general Moshe Ben Zaken took office.

Professional officials told Ben Zaken that the security division could not carry out the mission and warned that the situation posed a real security risk. The file was nevertheless put on hold, according to sources close to the file.

An official close to the discussions said Ben Zaken was warned several times but took no action, describing the ministry’s handling of the issue as part of a profound management failure.

A review of Regev’s public timetables from 2023 to 2025 also raises questions about the priority given to this issue.

The calendars were analyzed as part of Shakuf’s “Minister Meter” project, an Israeli non-profit investigative news organization focused on government transparency.

They are paying close attention to aviation-related issues, including efforts to persuade foreign airlines to resume services to Israel, responses to flight cancellations, airline agreements and meetings with the Civil Aviation Authority.

But the calendars contain no meetings dedicated specifically to vetting foreign flight crews or the broader safety deficit surrounding foreign airlines.

This absence is striking because the state comptroller had already warned of weaknesses in the system.

In May 2024, State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman’s office released the public portions of a classified audit examining international civil aviation security. The review covered foreign and private aircraft entering Israeli airspace as well as Israeli aviation abroad and flights departing from Israel.

The comptroller recommended that the National Security Council work with the ministries of Transport and Finance, the Civil Aviation Authority, the Shin Bet and the police to conduct a comprehensive review of the entire civil aviation security system. He also called for a reassessment of government and Security Cabinet decisions governing aviation security, some dating back to the 1970s, and for a clearer distribution of responsibilities and resources.

Regev’s calendars show that she continued to meet directly with officials of the Civil Aviation Authority in 2025. The meetings were recorded on January 30, on consecutive June 11 and 12 with the participation of Ben Zaken, and in a conference call on June 27 involving the heads of the Shin Bet and the Civil Aviation Authority.

Despite these meetings, no specific discussions about foreign flight security deficiencies were recorded, although Cohen submitted several explicit requests for urgent meetings with Regev and Ben Zaken to discuss the deficiencies.

Public calendars only give a partial picture. The data reviewed covers the period 2023 to 2025 and does not include Regev’s schedule in 2026. As is often the case with ministers’ public schedules, sensitive security consultations, routine briefings and informal conversations may also not appear explicitly or be listed under broader headings.

The calendars also provide a broader picture of how Regev allocated his time during this three-year period.

From 2023 to 2025, she held 160 meetings with municipal leaders from 40 cities and local councils. According to Shakuf’s analysis, most were associated with or supported Regev’s Likud party.

By contrast, calendars do not show any meetings during this period with Tel Aviv-Jaffa Mayor Ron Huldai, a prominent critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

These results alone do not establish why certain meetings took place or not, and publicly released calendars may not reflect all interactions.

The new scrutiny comes as investigators from several countries try to determine how al-Hammami was allowed into the cockpit of a Tel Aviv-bound plane despite warning signs in his background. The Associated Press reported that he had previously been flagged in Oman for his extremist views and was banned from flying there. No terrorist organization has claimed responsibility for the attack, and publicly available evidence has not established Iranian involvement.

The case therefore opened two parallel investigations for Israel: one into whether al-Hammami acted entirely on his own or had outside support and another into how the security system designed to protect foreign flights to Israel allowed him to reach the cockpit in the first place.