Israel will begin repatriation flights on Friday (October 2, 2026) to bring back passengers stranded in the United Arab Emirates after c ommercial travel between the two countries was suspended in the wake of the attack on a pilot by his copilot who tried to crash a Tel Aviv-bound flight this week.
The effort to get Israeli passengers home comes as authorities in Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and beyond are grappling with the fallout from the incident on board the flydubai flight Wednesday that has raised questions about the state of aviation security and further unsettled a Middle East already shaken by the ongoing US-Iran war. The UAE has cancelled all flights to Israel, complicating travel for hundreds of passengers who fly between the countries on a typical day. Dubai has been a popular destination for Israelis since Israel and the United Arab Emirates established ties in 2020 as part of the Trump administration’s Abraham Accords to normalise ties between Israel and Arab countries.
