The private jet landed at Ben Gurion Airport from Cyprus before taking off again two hours later, according to a report broadcast in Israel
A plane belonging to Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar briefly touched down in Tel Aviv on Thursday (January 13th), according to a report broadcast in Israel.
The P4-RMA private jet landed at Ben Gurion airport from Cyprus before taking off again two hours later, Kan public radio reported, without specifying the identity of the plane’s occupants.
Backed by Russia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates, Haftar leads the self-proclaimed Libyan National Army in eastern Libya. In April 2019, he launched a year-long offensive against the capital Tripoli before ultimately being repelled by the Turkish -backed Government of National Accord (GNA).
In November, he announced his candidacy for the December presidential election, before the ballot was postponed.
While it is unclear who was on the plane and whom the occupiers met on Israeli territory, Haftar is said to have met with members of the Israeli intelligence services in the past.
A “diplomatic stopover”
Libya and Israel currently have no diplomatic relations. But according to Haaretz, Haftar pledged to launch a normalization process similar to that carried out in 2020 by the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco, in return for “military and diplomatic assistance” from Israel.
Itay Blumental, Kan’s military correspondent, tweeted the route of the plane which was in Cyprus for a “diplomatic stopover” before heading to Tel Aviv and then returning.
The flight-tracking website adsbexchange.com shows that on January 12, the day before the stopover in Israel, the plane stopped in Amman, the capital of Jordan, as well as in Alexandria (Egypt).
This information comes a few days after the Saudi channel Alhadath TV mentioned a meeting in Amman between Abdel Hamid Dbeibah, interim Prime Minister at the head of the GNA, and the head of Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence agency, on a date not specified.
In a press release published by the Libyan government, Dbeibah denied the information and denounced a mere rumor. “This has not happened and will not happen in the future, our position on the Palestinian cause is firm and clear,” the statement said.
Last November, Haftar’s son, Saddam, landed in Israel on a private jet, amid media speculation that the commander could promise an Israel recognition deal after the presidential election.
According to Haaretz, Saddam was on the plane which stayed at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv for 90 minutes before taking off again.
