JERUSALEM, 11 October 2007 — Israel announced yesterday that it would install a new system to protect its airspace from terror attack and upgrade existing civilian aircraft missile defenses. At a meeting devoted to aviation security, ministers in the Security Cabinet were briefed about a soon-to-be installed system that will recognize planes flying in Israeli airspace, the prime minister’s office said.
The system would identify any plane “in a way that would significantly reduce the danger of unidentified or hijacked airplanes entering Israeli airspace in order to perpetrate terrorist attacks,” it said. Furthermore, the current anti-missile system on Israel’s commercial airline fleet will be upgraded.
“At the start of 2008, development will commence on a new technological system to replace the system presently being installed,” it said, adding that Israel was “the first nation in the world to reinforce its commercial airline fleet against missile attacks.”
On Nov. 28, 2002, a jetliner from Israeli charter company Arkia came under attack from two missiles that narrowly missed the plane as it took off from Mombassa, Kenya with 261 passengers on board. In December 2005, the Transport Ministry confirmed that Israel had begun to equip its national carrier El Al with an anti-missile system.
The so-called Flight Guard system, which was developed by the Israeli arms firm ELTA, costs a million dollars to install on each aircraft. The system is equipped with thermal sensors, which can deflect missiles in a similar fashion to those already installed on combat aircraft.
Meanwhile, Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian militant affiliated with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Party in a raid early yesterday, members of the armed group said.
Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian affiliated with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Party in a raid early yesterday, members of the armed group said. The shooting also wounded a senior militant from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the group said. The wounded man, Sufian Kandeel, had a recently signed a deal granting him amnesty from Israel, but had not fulfilled several conditions, group spokesman Mahdi Abu Ghazaleh said.
Israeli military officials said troops fired toward two armed men, killing one and injuring the other. Israel offered the amnesty to about 200 West Bank militants, mostly from Fatah, over the summer as part of efforts to bolster Abbas in his rivalry with the Islamic militant group Hamas. Under the deal, the militants agreed to sit in a Palestinian jail for three months and surrender their weapons. Kandeel had agreed not to harm Israelis, but did not accept the other conditions, said Abu Ghazaleh, who also signed the amnesty deal.
“We signed the list but will not go along with the Israeli conditions and we said ... ‘We will not sit in jail and not give in our weapons because they are valuable to us’,” Abu Ghazaleh said. “We don’t believe the Israeli government and all that they say.”
Witnesses said the Israeli soldiers entered Nablus’ Old City disguised in Palestinian security forces uniforms and carrying Kalashnikov rifles typical of the forces, witnesses said.
They spoke Arabic to passersby, asking “how are you,” and raising no suspicions as they took positions on rooftops, the witnesses said.
