Israeli opposition accuses Netanyahu of exploiting Flydubai incident

Israeli opposition politicians have slammed members of the far-right Netanyahu government for politicising Wednesday's suspected hijacking attempt of a plane en route to Tel Aviv from Dubai.

The Flydubai flight was forced to make an emergency landing in Tabuk earlier today after the co-pilot reportedly stabbed the captain and tried to take control of the aircraft.

The attacker, reportedly an Omani national, was subdued by several passengers before two off-duty pilots helped navigate the plane to the Saudi airport.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had earlier been accused of fearmongering after he repeatedly warned about rising security threats ahead of the October general election.

Extremist national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir used the attack to call for "total victory" in Iran, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank.

"The naive notion that our enemies cherish life and that we should pity them received another reminder this morning in the form of a terrorist who planned to crash a plane and murder the 180 Israelis on board," he said in a statement.

Defence Minister Israel Katz described the incident as a "jihadist terrorist attack".

Yair Golan, the leader of the centrist Democrats, issued a strong condemnation of the government's response.

"I despise the vile attempts by the 'Hamas is an asset' government to try and score cheap political points at the expense of this heroism," Yair Golan, the leader of the centrist Democrats, wrote in a post on X.

Avigdor Lieberman, the head of the hard-right opposition Yisrael Beiteinu party, said government officials were attempting to "manufacture spin" from the incident.

"The attempt by political operatives to turn an aircraft hijacking into political capital is disgraceful," he said.

Meanwhile, Yapid Lapid said Netanyahu had not mentioned anything resembling the plane incident during a security briefing on Tuesday. Lapid had requested the briefing after Netanyahu warned in a video that "there are signs that ahead of the elections our enemies will try to attack us".

"Netanyahu ignored every warning before 7 October and now, 28 days before the election, he’s suddenly busy fearmongering," Lapid said on Tuesday.