Three years after the October 7 attacks, Israel has maintained elevated security readiness amid reported planning by hostile armed groups in the region. Retired infantry battalion commander Colonel Richard Kemp conveyed to a broadcaster that those opposed to Israel seek out any available avenue through which to mount attacks against it.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long regarded Iran as the foremost threat to Israel's security. Bilateral friction between the United States and Iran has sustained that pressure, a pattern that took hold following strikes carried out jointly by American and Israeli forces in February. Kemp stated that Iran's military forces had sustained considerable losses as a result of strikes carried out by the United States, Israel, and their allies.
Iran retains some capacity for offensive action — both through direct strikes on Israel and by deploying allied armed groups — a pattern that has defined its regional strategy, with Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Yemen's Houthi movement among the factions used to target Israeli and US interests in recent months.
Kemp noted that a FlyDubai incident had brought a broader threat against Israel into sharper view. Omani co-pilot Hamam al-Hammami, aged 29, faces allegations of attempting to seize control of a Flydubai aircraft bound for Israel in what authorities have described as a suspected act of terrorism. Charges against al-Hammami centre on an alleged assault on captain Smit Machchhar using an axe kept aboard the aircraft, as part of what prosecutors say was an attempt to seize control of the fully loaded passenger plane.
Those aboard — both travellers and crew members — acted together to bring the plane back under control after it lost roughly 14,000 feet of altitude within a span of 29 seconds. Netanyahu described al-Hammami as someone who had reportedly undergone a process of radicalisation tied to Islamist ideology, while sources connected to the Israeli government told a broadcast outlet that the individual had been planning to direct an aircraft into Ben-Gurion Airport.
Kemp acknowledged that the full picture had yet to emerge, while drawing a comparison between the attack and the scale of harm the United States experienced on 11 September 2001. The alerts activated while the aircraft was still at some distance from Israeli airspace. Had the trajectory held toward Tel Aviv, those on the ground there would have faced a notably constrained set of options.
The question of whether intercepting a passenger aircraft carrying Israeli nationals over Israeli territory would be justified remains a matter of active debate among defence and legal analysts. The question of what alternatives exist remains open.
A diplomat from the Gulf region noted that inquiries are under way to determine whether al-Hammami acted on his own or had ties to any organised militant networks. On a LinkedIn account carrying the name Hamam al-Hammami, a pair of entries went up within a short window of each other, roughly nine hours after the event took place. No details have emerged about who was behind the posts or whether they had been set up to go out automatically beforehand.
Among the items was a video that displayed an image of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the man who took over al-Qaeda's leadership following Osama bin Laden's death. Appearing in the sequence was a photograph of Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, the individual whose detonation of a suicide device at a gathering in 2009 took the lives of nine people, among them seven officers attached to the CIA.
The organisation has put out calls urging followers to carry out similar attacks targeting passenger aircraft operated by American and Israeli carriers. A publication linked to al-Qaeda put out a statement holding that aircraft remain valid targets and that hostilities have not ended, pointing to the attacks of 11 September and 30 September as prior instances.
In a separate development, Kemp issued a notice that a comparable event remained possible in the aftermath of the thwarted Flydubai hijacking, adding that the unplanned actions taken by passengers and crew during that episode could not be relied upon to occur again under similar circumstances. Kemp stated that people who carry out attacks in the name of Islamic jihad have a documented history of targeting both aircraft and the passengers aboard them, and that the scenario remains one that security officials continue to weigh as a genuine possibility.
The assertion that authorities held full knowledge of the threats came alongside a separate disclosure: in the weeks before the incident in question, Netanyahu had publicly stated there were "indications" that adversaries were planning an assault in the lead-up to the 27 October elections. Kemp noted that the type of assault Netanyahu had reportedly flagged ahead of the vote is one that occurs with some regularity in that part of the region. Armed assaults on civilians in Israel have taken several forms, including vehicle-ramming incidents and attacks with bladed weapons.
Kemp indicated that a more substantial attack would likely follow once Israelis had cast their votes. He further argued that various actors across the region — among them Iranian authorities and jihadist factions — stand to benefit from a Netanyahu loss at the ballot box. One analyst noted that those planning such an operation would be aware that any strike could draw a response from Netanyahu, potentially working in his favour politically, and that this may factor into their calculations.
A statement from Israel's National Security Council in early September assessed that Iran, affiliated armed groups, Palestinian factions, and jihadist networks operating globally all retain strong motivation to conduct attacks against Israel. The National Security Council's statement pointed to an uptick in the willingness of armed factions to carry out attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets globally, attributing the shift to the country's recent military engagements.
Assessments gathered by intelligence agencies pointed to preparations by Iran — channelled through a web of allied armed groups — for an assault on Israel modelled on the 7 October attacks. Reports indicate that gatherings and preparatory drills took place between Iran and armed groups in the lead-up to what officials described as a planned joint operation. According to one broadcast outlet, contingency arrangements under consideration would see Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and various regional militias operating alongside Iran's conventional armed forces.
Materials recovered by forces operating in the Gaza Strip after the October 7, 2023 assault contained what were described as written strategies for broadening the conflict beyond the opening phase of the attack. Roughly 1,200 people lost their lives in the assaults, some 250 others were taken captive, and thousands more sustained injuries. Among the papers retrieved were outlined strategies for targeting high-rise buildings in Tel Aviv, with the Azrieli Towers complex among the named locations. The statement accompanying the plans indicated that any destruction of the tower, by whatever means, would trigger a substantial crisis for the opposing side.
Following the events of 7 October, measures to bolster intelligence-gathering capacity and protective infrastructure against armed threats were put in place. Kemp indicated that, from his perspective, the country was leaving nothing to chance, and that retaliatory measures would be deployed swiftly and in force against any party that moved against it. Those who study regional security have said the country's capacity to respond to armed pressure from non-state groups operating nearby has grown stronger. Designated buffer zones established across parts of Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria fall within that scope, as do the aerial defence systems operated by Israel.
Kemp noted that vulnerabilities in intelligence gathering extend beyond Israel, with comparable exposures facing Western nations more broadly. Police detained five individuals in connection with an alleged plot directed at the RAF Fairford base in Gloucestershire, and detectives in London subsequently took into custody a sixth individual holding both British and Iranian citizenship. UK authorities indicated that available evidence points toward Iranian involvement in the breach. Both the Iranian capital and the country's diplomatic mission in London put forward denials of the allegations.
US long-range bomber aircraft operated out of RAF Fairford during that period, doing so under authorisation tied to defensive activity connected with tensions across the Middle East. Kemp argued that many of the armed groups holding strong opposition to Israel share that same hostility toward Western nations broadly, including the United States and its allies. Attacks have taken place on British soil, and intelligence agencies, police, and security services have intervened to halt a considerably larger number of planned incidents before they could be carried out. Kemp stated that hostile activity toward Israel and its allies was expected to persist and take on new forms over time.
