Barely a week after the mid-air clash aboard the flydubai flight FZ1073 was branded a "terror attack" by the UAE, a viral video posted by an Egyptian pilot has sparked concerns.
The pilot, identified by Israeli outlet Channel 14 as Osama Mansour of EgyptAir, posted an Instagram video of an aircraft from Israeli airline El Al at an airport in Italy—also showing an EgyptAir flight enter the frame—with the cryptic caption: "A surprise entry disrupts the course of events."
However, it is the audio of the clip that has sparked concerns—a part of a speech from former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, in which he says "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and violence for violence".
Though Egypt and Israel maintain a fragile peace, with flights permitted between them, the video has sparked concerns, as it comes just two days after Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's comments on Egypt losing the Sinai Peninsula if it were to attack Tel Aviv.
“What would make Egypt not attack us? The understanding that if they attack us, there will be no Sinai at least,” Smotrich said in a video interview from his home on October 5—the eve of Egypt’s commemoration of the 1973 war that paved the way for it to reclaim the Sinai Peninsula after years of Israeli occupation.
Egypt and Israel had then signed a peace treaty at Washington, DC in March 1979 following the 1978 Camp David Accords, which has remained the foundation for formal ties between the two nations for decades.
More importantly, Mansour's politically charged video comes after earlier remarks by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, who had warned that Tel Aviv's "enemies" could try to attack it ahead of the October 27 parliamentary elections.
He had also lashed out at the Omani co-pilot of the September 30 flydubai flight—who had tried to crash it into Tel Aviv—for undergoing "Islamist radical indoctrination", as per a Fox News report.
It is yet to be seen whether Mansour's video will lead to legal action, especially with the renewed political and administrative scrutiny around Israel's aviation system after the flydubai incident—which has often been compared to the 9/11 and October 7 attacks.
