‘A hair’s breadth from Israel’s 9/11’: Ofer Winter issues stunning warning against Netanyahu
“Just as on October 7th, it was heroic citizens who saved the day this time as well. Once again, it is citizens who are taking responsibility and are willing to sacrifice themselves.”
Ofer Winter, chairman of the Amcha Yisrael party and a former senior IDF commander, sharply criticized Israel’s leadership on Sunday following the attempted seizure of an Israel-bound FlyDubai aircraft, arguing that the incident showed the country had failed to internalize the lessons of the October 7 massacre.
Speaking near Ben Gurion Airport shortly before Israel’s state memorial ceremony marking three years since the October 7 attack, Winter drew a direct parallel between the failures surrounding that day and the apparent security gaps exposed by the aviation incident.
“In about two hours, the state memorial ceremony for the October 7th massacre will begin. Three years after that horrific massacre, it seems the State of Israel refuses to learn the lesson,” Winter said.
“Behind me lies Ben Gurion Airport. Right here, a flight packed with Israelis and other citizens could have crashed at the airfield. We were a hair's breadth away from the greatest terror attack in the country's history, Israel's 9/11.”
Winter continued: “Just as on October 7th, it was heroic citizens who saved the day this time as well. Once again, it is citizens who are taking responsibility and are willing to sacrifice themselves.”
The comments carry particular political significance because Winter’s criticism does not come from the traditional opposition to Prime Minister Netanyahu.
A former brigadier general whose military career included senior combat commands, Winter has long been identified with Israel’s right-wing camp.
Winter’s argument seeks to frame the FlyDubai incident as evidence of a broader institutional problem that survived the political and military reckoning following the 2023 attack: warnings and vulnerabilities are allegedly being missed while ordinary Israelis ultimately bear the burden when established security mechanisms fail.
His choice of location and timing reinforced that message. Winter delivered the statement near Israel’s principal international airport only hours before the state ceremony commemorating October 7, explicitly linking remembrance of the massacre with questions about whether the country’s security establishment has changed sufficiently since then.
And by stressing that civilians were again forced to act when institutions allegedly failed, Winter is advancing a political message with potentially broader resonance: three years after October 7, he argues, the central question is no longer simply who was responsible for the failures of 2023, but whether Israel has actually corrected them.