Transport Ministry Accused of Negligence in Foreign Flight Security

Political commentator Amit Segal has sharply criticized the Ministry of Transport for its failure to utilize the National Passenger Screening Center, calling it a "complete scandal." Segal highlighted that while a decision was made to prevent pilots from hostile countries from entering Israel, the ministry has not used the available national database to identify such individuals. He explained that the center was established so that relevant government ministries could assign employees to access and analyze data for their specific needs. For instance, the Ministry of Health could identify passengers from disease-ridden countries, and the Ministry of Transport could flag pilots from hostile nations. Segal noted that the database has already proven its effectiveness, including in locating an Israeli woman who had disappeared in Vienna. However, he stated that the Ministry of Transport has never assigned personnel, submitted queries, or contributed its share to the database. "If it was decided that pilots from hostile countries are not to enter, how will you discover them if you haven't bothered to do your basic part and inquire?" Segal asked, emphasizing the severity of the lapse. His remarks follow recent reports questioning the Ministry of Transport's conduct and its fulfillment of responsibilities in foreign aviation security. A key finding concerns the passenger screening database, which, according to the law, allows authorized bodies to obtain information on passengers and crew. Despite the Ministry of Transport being eligible to use this data, it has reportedly never accessed it since the database's inception. The system could identify crew nationalities and flag cases requiring further checks. Compounding the issue, crew data sometimes reaches the system only just before departure or even after takeoff, with the information transfer mechanism itself now under review. Only after an attempted attack on a Flydubai flight were guidelines tightened for airlines, barring crew with citizenships from non-diplomatic countries from flying to Israel. These gaps were reportedly known long before, with an internal National Security Council document revealing the Ministry of Transport's failure to meet its obligations. The issue was also mentioned in a classified State Comptroller's report and discussions involving the Ministry of Transport, the National Security Council, the Shin Bet, and the Mossad. Even within the Ministry of Transport, professional staff warned they lacked the necessary capabilities for broad security responsibilities, yet the responsibility remained with the ministry without an alternative mechanism to bridge the information gap. Furthermore, the ministry's Security, Emergency, and Cyber Division, responsible for extensive security tasks across air, sea, and land, operates with a significantly reduced staff, reportedly around ten full-time employees after departures and unfilled positions. The Ministry of Transport has rejected these claims, asserting it is not an intelligence body and lacks the tools for independent background checks. They also argued that some publications confuse responsibilities for foreign and chartered flights. In response to these revelations, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has directed the head of the National Security Council, Shmuel Ben Ezra, to appoint an examiner to conduct a thorough review of all security aspects of foreign civil aviation to Israel.