The dispute escalated in Israel over a religious gathering scheduled for Thursday at the site of the “Nova” festival in Israel, where 378 people were killed during the attack on October 7, 2023, the third anniversary of which falls in a few days.
The families of those killed in the Hamas attack oppose holding the gathering in the place that has turned into a memorial site visited by hundreds of thousands of people, according to a report by Agence France-Presse.
The announcement of a three-day gathering on the occasion of the Jewish Sukkot, organized by movements close to the extreme right that believe in the Messiah, sparked strong opposition.
Similar celebrations held in 2024 previously sparked widespread anger, after pictures showed tents being set up, barbecue parties being organized, and inflatable swimming pools being placed at the site of the tragedy.
Yoram Yehudai, whose son Ron was killed at the Nova Festival on the day of the attack, wrote on the X platform on Tuesday: “Just as people do not go camping in Auschwitz or at Yad Vashem (the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem), it will not happen here either.”
Yehudai described the planned gathering as a “slap in the face” and “a desecration of the place.”
In the face of anger from the victims' families, the Jewish National Fund, which runs the site, imposed restrictions on activities.
Setting up tents, sound systems, lighting fires, and holding barbecue parties will be prohibited, while the Jewish National Fund stressed that the site should remain exclusively designated to commemorate the attack.
The police said on Tuesday that they would act “in cooperation and coordination with all concerned parties,” without pledging to enforce the restrictions set by the Jewish National Fund.
On the other hand, other relatives of the victims defended holding celebrations, considering them an expression of steadfastness.
Zvika Mor, the father of a former hostage and a candidate in the upcoming elections for the “Religious Zionism” party led by far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, said on the “X” platform on Wednesday that he does not consider it “necessary to organize a national commemoration.”
He also defended the legitimacy of holding activities at the site that express “strength, hope and optimism.”
The attack of October 7, 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, according to a census conducted by Agence France-Presse based on official Israeli figures. The militants also took 251 hostages to the Gaza Strip.
On the other hand, the Israeli war in Gaza that was launched in response to the attack resulted in the deaths of more than 74,000 people, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza, and the United Nations considers its data reliable.
Regardless of the details of the Flydubai plane incident and the accuracy of speculation that it was a terrorist act, it was revealed in Tel Aviv that senior Israeli army commanders held a consultation session, before meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to assess the situation regarding scenarios for dealing with the Flydubai plane, if it arrived hijacked into Israeli airspace.
There was disagreement over the motives of the accident that occurred on board a Flydubai plane, which was diverted to land at Tabuk Airport in Saudi Arabia, on Wednesday. While the Emirati company reported that “the reasons and motives behind what happened are still unknown at this initial stage,” and that they are under investigation, official Israeli officials considered the incident “terrorist.”
According to the Hebrew media, the military commanders, namely Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, Head of the Operations Department, Major General Itzik Cohen, and Head of the Military Intelligence Division, Major General Shlomi Bandar, discussed with Netanyahu several possibilities, including “destroying the plane so that the terrorist does not achieve his goal and shoot it down over Tel Aviv, or any other populated area in Israel.”
The Hebrew website "Ynet", affiliated with the newspaper "Yedioth Ahronoth", said that the army command placed before it the fact that there were 174 Israeli citizens on board the plane, including 27 children, and put forward the following possibilities: "That the terrorists (at that stage of the discussions, it was not known exactly what was going on in the plane) could turn the flight into a suicide operation, or carry out a kidnapping operation and land somewhere and begin negotiations about the hijackers' demands, or try to make it a suicide operation in Israel, and then The possibility of landing it by negotiation or shooting it down and destroying it in the air was raised, without causing any danger to the citizens on the ground, but by sacrificing all its passengers.
Prepare a rescue force?
The Israeli website said that the military leadership first ordered two fighter planes to take off into the air, to escort the Flydubai plane, and ordered preparations for all the possibilities mentioned above: preparing the Shaldag commando forces specialized in rescue, if the plane crashed, as it did when the American plane crashed over Iranian territory, last April, and placing the Special Counter-Terrorism Unit on high alert, which is the unit specialized in dealing with plane hijackings and liberating hostages.
According to a military source, “The army leadership breathed a sigh of relief, because it did not need any of these possibilities, but rather acted with absolute coolness and without haste.” This statement indicates that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yisrael Katz were hasty when they came out to the media with conclusions that this was a “jihadist terrorist operation against Israel,” before the investigation was completed.
Major General in the Army Reserve, Gideon Speir, who in the past served as Deputy Chairman of the National Security Council in the Israeli government, had revealed a prevailing Israeli doctrine in the army, which stipulates that no aircraft should be allowed to land suicidal on Tel Aviv or any populated places.
Speir said, in a press interview, on Wednesday evening, that the Israeli army, as part of its deliberations on security threats, had in the past conducted training on several scenarios in various directions, related to civilian aircraft that turn into a lethal weapon, and it continues training at a rate of twice a year. Among the scenarios is a hijacking of a plane and an attempt to shoot it down as a suicide terrorist attack on populated towns in Israel.
“Blowing up the plane if there were Israelis on board”
According to Major General Shabir, the instructions in the army are clear and categorical. Such an operation should not be allowed to be carried out at any cost. When he was asked on the official Israeli television channel, “Kan 11,” what he meant by that, he said frankly and clearly: “Blowing up the plane outside the borders of populated areas.”
He was asked: “Even if there were Israeli travelers there; We are talking about a plane with 174 passengers on board, the majority of whom are Israelis? He replied: “This is very cruel.” But there is no escape; A plane like this falling on Tel Aviv could lead to the death of all passengers on the plane, along with dozens and perhaps hundreds of other Israelis.”
Are there precedents for blowing up a civilian aircraft?
Israel faced a similar incident that occurred on February 21, 1973, in which Israeli Phantom warplanes shot down a Libyan civilian airliner belonging to Libyan Airlines over the Sinai Peninsula. At the time, a Boeing 727 was coming from Tripoli to Cairo via Benghazi, carrying 104 civilian passengers. The plane entered the airspace of Sinai, which was then under Israeli occupation, and encountered a sandstorm that led to a malfunction in the navigation, compass, and radar devices.
The plane's crew consisted of 9 individuals, led by the French captain, Jacques Borgar, alongside his Libyan assistant, Mahdi Ayyad, and 4 other Frenchmen who were working with both the French airlines and Libyan Arab Airlines. As for the other 3, they were of different nationalities, including a Lebanese stewardess.
Israeli aircraft conducted a pursuit operation. Although the Israeli pilots, as they later admitted, understood that it was a civilian plane, and the speed at which it was traveling was slow, unlike the speed of fighters, they received instructions to pressure the French pilot to land in Israel. When he refused, instructions were issued to drop it. According to Israeli sources, the decision was issued by Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and Chief of Staff David Elazar.
Israel acknowledged its responsibility for shooting down the plane after the black box was found, and then tried to justify the act by claiming that the plane posed a security risk, or that it refused to obey orders to land, but over the following decades it refused to offer an official apology or pay compensation, and the issue remained without a comprehensive international settlement.
Netanyahu benefits from the incident electorally
Returning to the “Fly Dubai” incident, the results of the first electoral poll conducted after it showed that Netanyahu’s chances rose by one seat, while the shares of his competitor, Gadi Eisenkot, fell by one seat.
The poll stated that the ruling right-wing camp, led by Netanyahu, returned to the lead over the opposition parties, by winning 54 seats, compared to 52 for the Zionist opposition, while the two Arab lists rose to 14 seats, which leaves the two camps (Netanyahu and the opposition) without a majority of 61 out of 120 seats being contested.
The poll was conducted for Channel 13. According to the results at the party level, if the elections were held, the Yashar Party, headed by Gadi Eisenkot, would top the party map with 21 seats (it was 22 seats in the channel’s previous poll), while Likud would rise by one seat to 19. The “Biyahad” coalition led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid would obtain 11 seats, as would the “Democrats” headed by Yair Golan (11 seats), followed by “Yisrael Beytenu.” Headed by Avigdor Lieberman, with 9 seats.
The Joint Arab List, headed by Youssef Jabareen, Ahmed Tibi, and Sami Abu Shehadeh, rose to 9 seats.
“United Torah Judaism” (Haredi) and “Otzma Yehudit”, headed by Itamar Ben Gvir, each get 8 seats, while “Shas”, headed by Aryeh Deri, and the “Religious Zionism - Zehut” coalition, led by Bezalel Smotrich and Moshe Feiglin, get 7 seats each. The United Arab List and the Amcha Yisrael party, led by Ofer Venter, get 5 seats each.
At the camp level, the poll gives Netanyahu's camp 54 seats, compared to 52 for Eisenkot's camp, while the two Arab lists get a total of 14 seats, out of 120 in the Knesset. But when asked about the most suitable person to head the government, Eisenkot continued to lead Netanyahu. He received 44 percent compared to 38 percent for the Prime Minister, with Netanyahu reducing the difference compared to the previous poll by two points.
