"I grabbed the attacker, put him in a chokehold and pulled him out. I called the Israelis who were with us, jumped back in and pulled the controls."

"I started pulling them back."

"He [wounded captain] was very close to the door and that made it difficult for us to open it. My conclusion is that he managed to open it for us before he collapsed." 

"The plane began to level out, and then [one of the other pilots aboard the plane] told me he was taking control."

Yaniv Hayun, Passenger on FlyDubai Flight 1073 

 

"[It was like] we were having very big turbulence, but there was no turbulence."

"My wife was standing near the cockpit because my daughter was in the bathroom. Suddenly, she heard shouting coming from the cockpit."

"She shouted to a replacement pilot from Fiji who was sitting there: 'Get in quickly, see what's happening'."

"He called for help, and two others and I entered the cockpit and subdued the attacker."

"I'm covered in blood. It was insane."

Almog Italie, Passenger on FlyDubai Flight 1073 

 

"[The aircraft was] pretty much out of control. It was really on the way to crashing, and it was simply he resourcefulness of many people who took control of the co-pilot and neutralized him."

"There was also a doctor who gave first aid, and people who treated both of them. Other than the pilot, there were no injuries, but the bigger fear was really a crash, which is exactly what he [the attacker] was trying to do."

Miryam Shira Ohayon, Passenger on Fly Dubai Flight 1073

 

"Despite being stabbed and seriously injured [Machchhar] fought back, resisted, opened the cockpit door, and enabled passengers and crew to overpower the attacker -- preventing a catastrophic mid-air disaster."

"...He is a true hero."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 

The United Arab Emirates prosecutor general has ordered an investigation into the ‌stabbing aboard FlyDubai Flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv, which was diverted and landed in Saudi Arabia after a struggle in the cockpit.  Still from video

 

According to Israeli dentist Musaev Shota, after hearing shouting he ran toward the cabin, helped to bind the attacker and then proceeded to treat the badly injured captain of the almost-doomed flight from the UAE to Israel. He and the others tied the hands and legs of the suspect as he continued to struggle against confinement, while insisting that they kill him, and thus give him the martyrdom he sought, despite the failure of his suicide mission. 

 

How could a man harbouring such a mission and carrying a fair-sized knife be aboard a plane with 174 passengers, plotting to bring it down and destroy all those lives, including his own? Israeli authorities immediately following the event, spoke of 'radicalization'. The attacker, a man with Omani citizenship, was known to Omani authorities, it is now revealed. His radicalization and toxic beliefs were known, and steps were taken to deny him the opportunity to fly Omani aircraft.

 

When he was hired by the United Arab Emirates' FlyDubai, Oman appears to have made no effort to warn of the man's untrustworthiness. And as he on that flight as the co-pilot, attacked the unsuspecting pilot, the plane dropped 17,000 feet in under two minutes. Some two hours and 20 minutes into its flight as it flew over the desert close to the Saudi-Jordanian order, the Omani co-pilot decided it was time to act on his plot to cause the untimely death of all those aboard Flight 1073. His plan was to kill the pilot and knock out the plane's controls.

 

The two onboard pilots who stepped in to take the controls managed to rescue the situation even as the aircraft "sent distress signals". They managed an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. Videos of terrified passengers screaming and crying appeared on social media, with children calling for their mothers and weeping in fear at the panic of the adults aboard. A woman on the flight said she saw a man holding a knife had forced the pilot to the floor, with blood everywhere. Seventeen strikes with a knife, head wounds and an almost-severing of an arm would do that.

 

Flydubai pilot tells Indian prime minister Modi that he couldn’t ‘let anyone die’ – video

 

The pilot, Smit Machchhar, an experienced aviator from India, had heroically while close to expiring, thought of the lives in his care as the pilot of the plane, and willed himself to make the effort to alert those aboard, likely in the knowledge that other pilots were aboard, in the hope that among those in the aircraft some might be inspired through their own will to survive, to enter the cabin, disable his attacker and enable the plane's plummet to be controlled.

 

And fortune decreed on that day in the sky in that geographic area, disaster was averted. When the plane was safely landed, the Israeli passengers sang "The People of Israel Live", Am Yisrael Chai! 

 

A FlyDubai flight bound for Tel Aviv plummeted more than 17,000 feet through the air after the co-pilot allegedly stabbed the captain in the plane's cockpit. (Photo credits: The Canadian Press, Reuters, Adobe Stock and Getty Images)

 

"[Initial assessments] indicate a foiled error attack intended to crash the aircraft with all passengers on board."

"While a catastrophic tragedy was  averted, this severe incident must be understood and treated as if the attack succeeded."

"It serves as an urgent reminder of the ongoing threats faced by innocent civilians across the globe, who remain deliberate targets simply for being Israeli."

"This was not only an attempt on innocent lives, but a direct attempt by extremist forces to sabotage the vision of peace, stability, and regional normalization fostered by the historic Abraham Accords."

Israeli diplomatic Mission in Canada 

"[The rise in spending] comes as no surprise."

"It's not just about 'retaliatory strikes'. Simply put, more munitions are needed if the goals of the Special Military Operation are to be achieved."

Evgeny Suvorov, chief economist, CentroCredit Bank, Moscow

 

"[The ministry revealed last week that the budget plan would] ensure the provision of necessary weaponry and military hardware to the armed forces, the payment of allowances to military personnel and support for their families, and the modernization of defence industry enterprises."

Finance Ministry press service

A Russian MiG-31 fighter jet flies in the international airspace over the Gulf of Finland, September 24, 2026. Swedish Air Force/Finnish Air Force/Handout via REUTERS/

 

"Russia continues its reckless campaign of hostile actions against NATO allies. It is trying to weaken our resolve and stop our support for Ukraine."

"But Russia is failing. It is failing on the battlefield in Ukraine and it is failing to undermine our unity and support for Ukraine."

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte  

On the sidelines of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, Russia has been teasing and testing NATO member countries, particularly its close East European neighbours in the Baltic region. Estonia has concluded an investigation into an arson attack on August 15 against Milrem Robotics, an Estonian defence manufacturer producing ground drones used by Ukraine. "We can conclude with certainty" stated Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna, "that the arson attack ... was an act of sabotage ordered by the special services of the Russian Federation".

 

Milrem Robotics located in the Estonian capital Tallinn, had a fire break out in a building for which it has concluded Moscow's responsibility. "Baseless, absolutely no relation to reality. We cannot and will not take such statements seriously", responded Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov in response. Russia has been repeatedly accused of hybrid provocations since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have increased their defence investment as a result. "Moscow is trying to scare Europe into winding down its support for Ukraine. This will not happen", stated Christian Wigand, European Commission spokesman. 

(DMITRY KOSTYUKOV/Getty Images)

 

War is a costly business on all sides. Vladimir Putin is so engrossed in saving Ukrainians from the grip of their 'neo-Nazi' government that despite Ukraine's courageous and effective counteroffensive to the conflict reaching into its fifth year -- discounting Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea and much of the Donbas, and the loss on both sides of tens of thousands of military personnel -- he grinds on with his goal. It is Ukraine's vast territory, its agricultural land and natural resources that Putin slavers over.

 

A scarcity of fighting manpower, the cost attendant on firing countless missiles and drones to defeat Ukraine's resolve to meet the challenge its neighbour poses and exit the war intact, has cost Russia dearly. Nothing deters Putin's territorial ambitions. He is prepared to continue pouring more resources -- both manpower and financial -- into the war he has inflicted on Ukraine. Plans are underway at the Kremlin to boost military spending by over 25 percent, even as Ukraine has succeeded in penetrating deeper into Russian territory.

 

Military spending reflecting Putin's new draft budget now stands at 17.1 trillion rubles (some $288 billion) for the coming year. War spending will sit at roughly 35 percent of the country's 48.8 trillion rubles in total expenditures. Moscow has been forced to spend greater sums just on protecting itself even as it relentlessly continues to attack Ukraine's cities, aiming for its electrical grids as winter approaches to once again demoralize Ukrainian citizens left without heat and cooking facilities during its long cold winter.

 

For its part, Kyiv continues its winning strategy of sending missiles and drones further within Russia, targeting oil refineries, logistics hubs and warehouses. Russia must respond to increase costly air defences, and stepped up its attacks on crucial Black Sea ports for Ukraine, and hitting urban centres which it claims are really military depots. Ukraine's targets of Russian oil facilities have caused pain in a gasoline shortage across the country.

 

Russia's air defences, the advanced systems protecting Moscow included, have been tested by large scale drone attacks, courtesy of Ukraine. The massive military casualties that Russia has suffered have failed to translate to progress on the battlefield. Russians now spend sleepless nights in worrying over a new mobilization, with the new parliament back in session, when an overwhelming 'democratic process' voted Vladimir Putin back in power. 

 

Russia plans to spend 17.1 trillion rubles ($202.58 billion) on defense in 2027, around 27% more than the 13.5 trillion rubles originally budgeted and the highest figure since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022, government documents seen by Reuters showed on Monday.  Reuters

 

"Canada and UNRWA share concerns about the threat of terrorism, including within the context of the United Nations' firm commitment to counter terrorism."

"[UNRWA is] taking all possible measures [to ensure Canadian government charitable/humanitarian funding  would not be used to] provide assistance to or otherwise support, terrorists or terrorist organizations."

"Canada's humanitarian assistance funding is largely flexible and un-earmarked."

Global Affairs Canada

Of all the millions Ottawa has earmarked for Palestinians, it’s the outlays for UNRWA – the United Nations Relief and Works Agency – that have received the most scrutiny. Photo by Mohammad Nazal/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

 

When Stephen Harper was the Conservative Prime Minister of Canada, he was coherent and principled and well-informed. So much so that he quite reasonably understood where funding for the Palestinian 'cause' of aiding the 'victims' of Israel's statehood, that left Arab Palestinians' aspiration to have all land they claimed as their own -- Judean ancestral land -- that the United Nations in its wisdom in 1947 split between Jews and Arabs, to be gifted only to the Arab demographic that termed themselves 'Palestinian' despite that designation dating back to the Roman Empire which renamed Judea to spite unruly Jews.

 

The Conservative government took the step of cutting off all Canadian aid to UNRWA, knowing it for what it really is; a United Nations-mandated entity to support the world's only permanent 'refugee' population, one so fully in accord with Palestinian resentment of the presence of the Jewish state that it never stopped plotting to destroy it. UNRWA schools employed Palestinian terrorists to operate them, using the school textbooks characterizing Jews as deadly enemies.

 

The curricula taught Palestinian children to abhor Israel, encouraging children to dream of becoming honoured martyrs in the cause of 'opposing' the Israeli 'occupation', whose purpose it was to defend Jews against lethal violence children were taught to regard as their highest calling, for which they would ascend to Paradise. Palestinian children's school plays had them enacting fatal encounters with Jews. 'Summer camps' set up for Palestinian children taught them the vital elements of guerrilla warfare.

 

Summer Camps/Palestinian Youth AP

And the United Nations Relief and Works Agency worked right alongside Fatah and Hamas in patterning Palestinian children to desire death in the carrying out of the sacred task of murdering Jews for the crime of being Jews and inhabiting their heritage territory. The honoured calling of terrorism against one's mortal enemy who refused to surrender to Palestinian Arab demands of sole ownership of the territory. 

 

None of this is unknown, but it goes unrecognized as dreadfully inconvenient to acknowledge and act upon in the West, which has chosen the sanctimonious route of paying homage to terror by empathizing with the 'underdog' that engages in the kind of acceptable propaganda portraying themselves as the world's eternal victims, oppressed by the world's most persecuted minority which clings to its sliver of land as a political, moral, military bulwark against the ethnic/religious/cultural detestation of ancient derivation that will not die.

 

The Liberal government of Canada has no intention of opening the cover of a book whose frontal illustration is that of starving children in Gaza and the West Bank; governed by Palestinian leaders who have received billions of charitable funds from the United Nations, Europe, North America and elsewhere to relieve the conditions of enduring poverty, but which end up in private bank accounts, and in financial support for the 'martyrs' who engage in deadly attacks against Jews and Israel. The pages within document a history too complex to digest, and so why bother?

 

Horrifying images show victims of Hamas attack at rave, where Israeli cops acted as human shields and hostages had legs blown off, survivors say https://trib.al/ctXLbrp

 

When the October 7 Palestinian terrorists sprinted by their thousands from Gaza into southern Israel, the  government of Canada was sending  hundreds of millions of dollars in support of the poor, needy Palestinians, through UNRWA. That same UN agency from among whose staff Hamas operatives were raiding Israeli homes, raping girls and women, setting homes on fire with their residents within, slaughtering the inhabitants of farming communities and young Israelis enjoying social relaxation at  the Nova Music Festival nearby.

 

Eventually, when enough proof was provided of the participation in October 7 of an astonishing number of Hamas operatives who also were employed by UNRWA, the UN body fired many of them while claiming that "the dismissal of the staff is not part of a disciplinary process and does not constitute in any way a validation of the claims made against them".

 

And although Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas claimed to have put a stop to the Palestinian Authority Martyrs Fund that guaranteed lavish financial support for anyone imprisoned or martyred while committing an act of 'resistance', the U.S.-based Modern War Institute analysis quoted the PA's "Amended Palestinian Prisoners Law No. 19" which identifies a pension account for any Palestinian deemed to have taken part "in the struggle against the occupation". And 'Pay for Slay' carries on.  

"We understand that a recent payment has been made to the families of prisoners, based on a previous scheme."

"We profoundly regret this decision, as this seems to go against prior announcements."

EU Commission November 2025 public statement  

In all a total of $600 million has been transferred by Canada to Gaza. The millions that Ottawa earmarked for Palestinians have seen UNRWA receiving scrutiny. Nonetheless despite clear evidence of complicity between the agency and Hamas as well as with other Palestinian terrorist groups, and UNRWA's responsibility in corrupting young Palestinian minds, Canada continues to fund them. The latest $100 million gesture of trust a mere several weeks past, $20 million of which was for "peace and stabilization initiatives" that includes training and equipping a Palestinian military component.

 

Canada's Prime Minister Carney is so  convinced of the worthiness of Palestinian claims to statehood despite its ongoing refusal to recognize Israeli right of existence and sovereignty, that on behalf of Canada, he 'recognized' Palestinian statehood with the proviso that greater evidence of dedication to democracy be attained and demonstrated. The upshot is that Canada, along with Spain, Ireland, the U.K. and France have 'recognized' Palestinian statehood. The qualifiers have not and will never become reality.

 

As for the 'two-state solution' they espouse as a 'solution' to the 'unrest', it has been rejected time and again by the Palestinians, who finally put it to rest on October 7. 

"Canada is deeply alarmed by the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the terrible situation for the civilian population, exacerbated by severely restricted access for humanitarian partners seeking to provide assistance. Canada continues to call for a UN-led humanitarian response with safe and unimpeded access into and within Gaza. The ceasefire is a welcome development and Canada urges the parties to fully adhere to it."

"The ongoing conflict has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths. Heightened tensions in the region could pose further security risks."

"The security and economic situation in the West Bank is also of concern. Frequent Israeli military operations throughout the West Bank, as well as rising extremist settler violence against Palestinians, have led to thousands of casualties and resulted in clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinians."

"Canada’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is guided by its historic and unwavering commitment to a two-state solution, with Israelis and Palestinians living side-by-side in peace and security. Prospects for a two-state solution have been steadily eroding, as a result of the pervasive threat of Hamas’ terrorism, continued Israeli settlement expansion and extremist settler violence in the West Bank, and the Israeli government’s ongoing military operation in Gaza, and failure to alleviate the resulting humanitarian crisis."

Government of Canada