The Levant Files

Flydubai passengers returned to Israel under fighter escort on Wednesday evening after a violent cockpit incident forced their Dubai–Tel Aviv flight to land in Saudi Arabia. Hebrew media reported that some survivors initially refused to board another aircraft from the same airline, while the crisis triggered urgent talks over aviation security between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Israeli officials suspect an attempt to crash the aircraft; the motive remains under investigation. By the Editorial Team of TLF Photo: Simple Flying. Coverage checked for 16:35–20:35 Cyprus/Israel time, 30 September 2026. Earlier reporting is included where needed for context. The journey ended with relatives waiting at Ben Gurion Airport and emergency teams ready to receive passengers. According to Calcalist’s evening live coverage , the replacement aircraft landed at about 18:35, accompanied by two Israeli fighter jets during its final approach. Medical and psychological support had been a...

Israel’s progressive and left-wing parties are heading into the October election more organized than they were four years ago. But unity on the ballot has not yet become a shared route to power—or a common plan for governing. By the Editorial Team of The Levant Files Israel’s left has consolidated, but the prospect of a governing alternative still hinges on coalition choices and the role of Arab parties. (Photo: [AI]) Israel votes on 27 October, with Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponents facing a familiar problem: they may be able to assemble a parliamentary majority on paper, but that does not mean they agree on what to do with it. The left has taken steps to address one part of that problem. Labor and Meretz have joined forces under The Democrats , while Hadash, Ta’al and Balad have reunited on a joint electoral list. The result is a more consolidated left—and a sharper question for voters: can these forces help build a government, or will they rem...

The alarm was real. The explanation is not settled. As investigators examine a cockpit confrontation aboard a Dubai–Tel Aviv flight, a larger question hangs over the headlines: are the enemies of the United States and Israel preparing another September 11—or has the memory of that day begun to make every frightening incident look like its prelude? By The Editorial Team of TLF An aircraft at an airport, or a flight-tracking map showing the route to Tabuk. Caption: The Flydubai flight landed safely in Saudi Arabia after an emergency diversion. The cause of the cockpit incident remains under investigation. On Wednesday morning, the story seemed to race ahead of the facts. A Flydubai passenger jet bound for Tel Aviv turned away from Israel, transmitted emergency codes and descended sharply before landing in Saudi Arabia. Israeli fighter jets were scrambled. Passengers were frightened. Then came the most disturbing reports: a fight in the cockpit, a pilot ...

By the Editorial Team of TLF Itamar Ben-Gvir's appearance at Al-Aqsa during Sukkot was presented as a religious visit. It was also a show of power. According to Al Jazeera , the Israeli national security minister entered the compound under police protection, and video released by his office showed him taking part in religious rituals. The setting gave the moment its weight. Ben-Gvir is not a private citizen making a pilgrimage. He is the minister responsible for Israel's police. At Al-Aqsa, that distinction is combustible. The compound is administered day to day by the Jordanian-appointed Islamic Waqf under the long-standing status quo. Muslims pray there. Jewish visitors are allowed entry under Israeli control, but public prayer by non-Muslims has long been restricted because of the risk of confrontation. Ben-Gvir's visits have repeatedly pressed against those limits. According to Anadolu Agency , about 1,500 Israeli visitors, including Ben-Gvir, entered the com...

  Benjamin Netanyahu did not surprise anyone at the United Nations. He came to defend Israel, confront its enemies and repeat arguments the world has heard many times before. What deserves closer attention is how much wider he chose to draw the circle of confrontation — taking aim not only at Iran, but at Qatar and Turkey. And there, standing increasingly close to Israel at a particularly dangerous moment, is Greece. By the Editorial Team of TLF Benjamin Netanyahu went to the UN General Assembly and, in many ways, delivered exactly the speech one would have expected from him. There was the defiance. There was the defence of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and its military campaign against Iran. And there was the familiar presentation of Israel as a country surrounded by enemies and forced to fight because, in Netanyahu’s words, “we have no other choice.” None of this was particularly surprising. What was more striking was the breadth of the confrontation Netanyahu chose to stage from the ...

Left-Wing Epohi Carries Boycott Campaign's Alarm An Israeli military shipbuilder is one of two remaining contenders for a controlling stake in the port of Lavrio, southeast of Athens, according to a text published on 23 September by Epohi, a Greek left-wing newspaper. The piece is signed by BDS Greece, the Greek branch of the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, and reads as a campaign appeal rather than a news report. According to the text, the Hellenic Growth Fund, Greece's sovereign wealth fund, is selling 51% of Lavrio Port Authority S.A., which operates the third-largest port in Attica. The buyer would gain corporate and operational control under a concession running until 2062. Lavrio lies close to Athens International Airport and faces the Cyclades, with growth potential in ferry services, cruises, yachting, ship repair and logistics. Five binding offers were submitted in June 2025. Citing press reports, BDS Greece says that after appeals and cou...

  By The Levant Files TLF SPECIAL — Israel’s expanding role in Greek and Cypriot air defence is creating a new strategic picture around Turkey. Viral claims that 65% of the country will fall under constant radar surveillance are overstated, but the network now taking shape could still transform early warning across the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean. Israel’s defence industry is becoming a central supplier to the two states positioned along Turkey’s southern and western maritime approaches. Cyprus has brought Israeli-made Barak MX air-defence systems into service. Greece has signed a €3.035 billion agreement with Israel to build Achilles Shield, an integrated air, missile and drone-defence architecture. Together, the decisions point towards a future in which Israeli sensors, missiles and command systems play a much larger role from Cyprus to the Aegean and Thrace. The latest debate was triggered by a dramatic claim circulating through Greek media and social networks: that Israeli...

The diplomatic upgrade comes alongside renewed US and Israeli support for Morocco’s claim to the disputed territory. Israel and Morocco agreed on Wednesday to upgrade their liaison offices to full embassies and appoint ambassadors, taking a step delayed for years by disagreements over Western Sahara and political tensions surrounding the Gaza war. The agreement links closer diplomatic relations with renewed American and Israeli backing for Morocco’s position on Western Sahara. For Rabat, that support provides a clear political benefit from strengthening ties with Israel, although the announcement does not establish that it was a formal condition of the upgrade. Reuters reported ⁠ that the embassy agreement was announced by the Israeli government following talks involving Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita and US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz in New York. Alongside the upgrade, Washington and Israel reaffirmed their recognit...

Israeli settlers stormed the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, according to reports from the ground, as Israeli forces kept the site closed to Palestinians for a second consecutive day and tightened a security cordon around it. The closure began Wednesday, with Israeli forces citing "security measures" tied to Jewish holiday celebrations by settlers. Amjad Karajah, director of Hebron's Awqaf (endowments) department, called it a flagrant violation of the site's sanctity and of Muslims' right to reach their place of worship. Alongside the closure, troops tightened measures around the shrine and shut the checkpoints and electronic gates leading to it, blocking pupils and staff from the Ibrahimi Basic School for Boys and Al-Fayhaa Basic School for Girls; classes at the first were halted entirely and disrupted at the second. Gates into the Old City markets were also closed, and checkpoints at the Jaber, Al-Salaymeh, Ghaith and Wadi Al-Hussein neighbourhoods — all adjacent t...

  Israeli armoured forces pushed deeper into Syria’s Quneitra countryside on Sunday, reaching the Tal Ahmar area near Ain al-Nuriya after moving through villages in the north of the province, according to multiple Syrian and regional reports. The latest movement appears to form part of a broader series of Israeli military operations across southwestern Syria, involving tanks, armoured personnel carriers and other military vehicles at several locations in Quneitra and neighbouring areas. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a large Israeli force moved before dawn from a recently established military position in al-Hamidiyah, in northern Quneitra. The Observatory said the column included military and armoured vehicles, among them tanks, and advanced through Ofaniya toward Ain al-Nuriya. SOHR described the movement as part of simultaneous Israeli military activity in southern Syria, with operations also reported elsewhere in Quneitra and in the western countrys...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Wednesday that Israeli forces hold "unprecedented" control over territory stretching from the summit of Mount Hermon in southwestern Syria to the Yarmouk River and the Mediterranean Sea, remarks delivered during a visit to troops stationed on the strategic peak. "Damascus is here, Lebanon is there, and the Syrian Golan Heights are there," Netanyahu said, vowing Israel would never allow a "terrorist army" on its borders and calling the control one of the greatest achievements of what he termed the "War of Redemption." He was accompanied by Defense Minister Israel Katz and senior commanders. Katz had earlier warned Israeli forces "will not move from here" and accused Turkey of seeking a threatening foothold in Syria — tensions underscored by Israel's August 18 strike on Abu al-Duhur airbase in Idlib, which Netanyahu's office linked to a planned Turkish deployment near Aleppo. Even...

The six-month-old war between the United States, Israel and Iran escalated sharply on Wednesday as US forces destroyed five more Iranian oil tankers, Iran answered with a 20-missile barrage toward an American base in Jordan and claimed fresh attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran-backed Houthis set Saudi oil facilities ablaze — driving Brent crude back above $100 a barrel for the first time since late July. The US military said the tankers were struck after Tehran twice launched ballistic missiles at an American warship in recent days, with crews ordered to abandon ship first; Central Command said it had destroyed ten Iranian tankers in the past week. Iran's Revolutionary Guards claimed they hit two US vessels and eight tankers and fired on ten ships trying to cross what Tehran calls a "prohibited and unsafe" zone — a claim CENTCOM dismissed as "completely FALSE," insisting no American warship was struck. The battlefield stretched beyond the Gulf overnight. J...

As U.S. warships choke Iran's oil lifeline in the Strait of Hormuz, a stark warning emerges: Israel's offshore energy crown jewels may be the regime's next "soft target." America's military strikes on Iranian oil tankers near Kharg Island and the port of Jask may look like a decisive victory in Washington — but they could be quietly painting a target on Israel's Mediterranean gas fields. That is the urgent warning from Amine Ayoub, a Morocco-based policy analyst and fellow at the Middle East Forum, writing in an analysis published by Ynetnews . A Victory in the Gulf, a Threat in the Mediterranean According to Ayoub, writing in Ynetnews, the U.S. operations have created what he calls a "strategic risk transfer" for Israel. Cornered and outgunned, Tehran has every incentive to avoid a direct, symmetric clash with the American Navy — and instead redirect its retaliation toward high-value, Western-aligned assets where U.S. protection is thinnest. Tha...

As Israel intensifies its strikes on southern Lebanon, a senior Iranian diplomat is warning that the escalation is no accident — it may be a calculated attempt to lure Iran back into open war. In an interview with Iran's Khabar Online news agency, Mohammad Irani, Iran's former ambassador to Lebanon and Kuwait and a former director-general of the Middle East desk at the Foreign Ministry, argued that "Tel Aviv is seeking to drag Iran into the Lebanon war," adding that Netanyahu "needs to focus a major part of his efforts on drawing Iran into the conflict and is, in fact, waiting for Iran's reaction." The Netanyahu Factor Irani told Khabar Online that the timing of the escalation is closely tied to Israel's domestic politics ahead of elections. "Netanyahu's situation is not favorable politically," he said, arguing that a wartime atmosphere benefits the Israeli premier. "The war atmosphere on the eve of the elections will ultimately w...

UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed personally warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Hamas was planning a major operation against Israel less than two weeks before the October 7, 2023 massacre — but Netanyahu never shared the warning with Israel's top security officials, according to an extensive investigation published by Haaretz . The revelations come from reporting by Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval, conducted for their new book, "Hostages: 843 Days of Abandonment" (Kinneret Zmora Publishing). The research drew on dozens of sources in Israel and abroad, including recordings, internal documents, and correspondence. According to the Haaretz report, bin Zayed called Netanyahu from the Presidential Palace in Abu Dhabi for a 45-minute conversation, warning that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was preparing a major operation that could destabilize the region and undermine the Abraham Accords. Netanyahu reportedly responded calmly, telling the Emirati ruler he believ...

  What happened on Sunday in Saxony-Anhalt may appear, at first sight, far removed from the Levant. It is not. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has surged to a commanding victory in the eastern German state, according to the first election-night projections, delivering one of the most dramatic blows yet to Germany’s post-war political establishment. For The Levant Files, the significance goes well beyond German domestic politics: Germany sits at the centre of European policy on migration, Syria, Turkey, Israel, defence and the Eastern Mediterranean. A political earthquake in Germany will eventually send tremors south and east. ARD projects the AfD at 44.5 percent, more than double its 20.8 percent result in 2021. The Christian Democratic Union has fallen to around 18.5 percent, from 37.1 percent five years ago. This is not a normal protest vote. It is an electoral rupture. For years, Germany’s mainstream parties have defended a political consensus built around European i...

The confrontation between Washington and Tehran escalated into a volatile maritime phase this weekend after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired multiple ballistic missiles at two U.S. Navy warships, triggering direct American retaliatory strikes against Iranian commercial crude tankers across the Gulf. U.S. Central Command confirmed the missile barrage, stating that both American vessels successfully evaded the incoming strikes with no personnel injured. Washington responded swiftly by targeting three Iranian tankers: the M/T Downy off Kharg Island, the M/T Stark 1 near Jask, and the M/T Kylo/Noxen in the Gulf of Oman. According to CENTCOM, two of the vessels were permanently disabled, while the third was destroyed after its crew was instructed to abandon ship. Iranian state media corroborated that a tanker near Kharg Island sustained four projectile strikes. CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper directly linked the operation to Tehran’s missile attack, establishing that Was...

Greece’s Communist Party (KKE) has sharply condemned the government’s new air-defence agreement with Israel, arguing that the so-called “Achilles Shield” will deepen Greece’s military involvement in regional conflicts while imposing a multibillion-euro burden on the public. According to the Greek news outlet 902.gr, agreements signed on Monday between Athens and Israel cover the acquisition of several Israeli-made air-defence systems at a total cost exceeding €3 billion. The package reportedly includes Rafael’s David’s Sling and Spyder systems, as well as the Barak MX system produced by Israel Aerospace Industries. A separate €26 million agreement is also said to cover the Drone Dome counter-unmanned aerial vehicle system. The deal forms part of Greece’s broader “Agenda 2030” defence modernisation programme and has been promoted by the government as a multilayered architecture designed to strengthen protection of Greek territory. KKE, however, rejected that description. In a statement ...