October 15, 2026
On Wednesday, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority reopened the controversy over the alleged visit of the former head of Egyptian General Intelligence, Major General Abbas Kamel, to Israel prior to the attack on October 7, 2023. The authority revealed new data denying Kamel’s presence on board an Egyptian plane that landed at Ben Gurion Airport 11 days before the attack, following statements by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which he confirmed that the visit had taken place.
The authority reported that an Egyptian business plane belonging to the charter airline “Smart Aviation” landed at Ben Gurion Airport on the morning of September 26, 2023, and left for Cairo after remaining on the ground for a little more than an hour. Based on informed sources, the Authority confirmed that Major General Abbas Kamel “was not on board this particular plane,” explaining that its passengers were two businessmen who entered Israel through the “Fatal” passenger terminal on a trip it described as routine.
According to the report, the plane received ground handling services from QAS before taking off back to Egypt empty of passengers. The broadcasting authority confirmed that the trip was not registered as an official or security trip, noting that the names of the passengers are known to the competent authorities, but the confidentiality rules adopted for business trips prevent their identities from being revealed.
These developments come in response to statements made by Benjamin Netanyahu in an interview with Israeli Channel 14, on Tuesday evening, in which he confirmed the visit of the Egyptian intelligence chief to Israel before the October 7 attack, but denied meeting him personally, justifying this by being busy with a ceremony commemorating Israeli army soldiers. Netanyahu asked, saying: “The head of the Egyptian intelligence service was here, and I want to know who he met with,” adding that he did not know the Israeli official who met with him, and accused parties he did not name of trying to attribute a meeting to him that did not happen.
In the same context, the Broadcasting Corporation quoted the heads of the Israeli security services as categorically confirming that they had not met with the head of Egyptian intelligence in the few days before the attack.
This debate comes within the framework of the ongoing debate within Israel about the intelligence failures and warnings that preceded the October 7 attack and the responsibility for it, while the data related to the September 26 plane added a new dimension to the debate about the truth of that visit attributed to Major General Abbas Kamel.
