Israel Katz is an Israeli politician and a member of the Knesset for the Likud party. He has served as Israel's minister of defense since November 2024. Earlier he held ministerial posts including foreign affairs, finance, transportation, energy and infrastructure, intelligence and agriculture.
Case
Israeli officials say a flydubai pilot tried to crash flight FZ1073 on September 30, 2026. The airline says the motives are unknown and urges against speculation. As of that date, no investigating authority had reported findings on what happened in the flight deck.
Role at the time: Minister of Defense of Israel, in a statement issued through his office
Response to this claim
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on September 30, 2026 that the incident aboard flydubai flight FZ1073 was "an attempted jihadist terrorist attack" and that, according to the initial information in Israel's possession, "the terrorist had one intention: to crash the aircraft with all its passengers."
“The serious incident on the Flydubai aircraft was an attempted jihadist terrorist attack that was thwarted only thanks to the heroism of several Israeli passengers who broke into the cockpit, overpowered the terrorist and with their own hands returned control of the aircraft to an additional flight crew that was present there ... According to the initial information in our possession, the terrorist had one intention: to crash the aircraft with all its passengers.”
The case asks whether a pilot deliberately tried to crash FZ1073. Katz said the incident was "an attempted jihadist terrorist attack" and that the intention was to crash the aircraft with all its passengers, which asserts the proposition. He framed it as based on "initial information" and did not describe the evidence. We labeled it Condemned. His "terrorist" and "jihadist" characterizations are a separate question this case does not decide. We record them only because they come with his statement about the intention to crash the aircraft.
Statement dates: September 30, 2026
Statement dates: September 30, 2026
Statement dates: September 30, 2026
