Sometimes an incident raises more questions than answers.

The Flydubair flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv on Wednesday was, by any measure, terrifying. There was a violent incident in the cockpit, the aircraft suffered an extraordinary loss of altitude, emergency signals were transmitted and the plane eventually made an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.

Passengers survived. The crew survived. The aircraft landed safely.

For that, we should be grateful.

The official investigation is still under way. The UAE General Civil Aviation Authority has specifically warned against speculation while the facts are established. So I am not going to pretend to know what happened inside that cockpit, or why. ⁠

But there is a part of the story that I find difficult to ignore.

The aircraft was flying from the UAE to Israel. It was carrying 174 people, most of them Israeli passengers.

As the emergency unfolded, the aircraft transmitted the general emergency code 7700. It then transmitted 7500 — the internationally recognised signal for unlawful interference.

And then something rather interesting happened.

The aircraft briefly entered Jordanian airspace.

Jordan has a peace treaty with Israel. The UAE has normalised relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords.

Saudi Arabia has done neither.

Yet the aircraft turned back towards Saudi Arabia and ultimately requested an emergency landing at Tabuk. Saudi authorities received the distress call and allowed the aircraft to land. The injured crew members were taken to hospital and the passengers were looked after.⁠

So far, so good.

In fact, it is precisely what we should expect from a country responding to an aircraft in distress.

But then came the second chapter.

Israel reportedly asked Saudi Arabia to allow Israeli aircraft to enter the Kingdom to collect its citizens.

Saudi Arabia said no.

According to Reuters, Israel had prepared to send military transport aircraft, including C-130 Hercules planes, but the request was rejected. The passengers ultimately returned to Israel on another Flydubai aircraft.

And this is where I think there are some legitimate questions — not conspiracy theories, just questions.

Why Saudi Arabia?

Why, having briefly entered Jordanian airspace, did the aircraft turn back towards Saudi Arabia?

Was Tabuk simply the most appropriate airport available given the circumstances? Was the decision made by the crew, air traffic control, or some combination of the two?

We don’t yet know.

And that distinction matters.

Because there is a temptation, particularly in the Middle East, to take an unexplained detail and immediately build a theory around it.

We should resist that.

But equally, we shouldn’t pretend that unexplained details aren’t worth examining.

There is another interesting distinction here.

Saudi Arabia was willing to provide emergency assistance to an Israel-bound aircraft and its passengers.

But it was not willing to permit Israeli planes to enter Saudi territory to retrieve those same passengers.

That tells us something about the limits of the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Saudi Arabia has not joined the Abraham Accords and has not established diplomatic relations with Israel. Its position remains that normalisation is linked to progress towards Palestinian statehood.

So perhaps the most revealing part of this extraordinary episode is not the landing itself.

It is what happened afterwards.

A Saudi airport could become, in an emergency, a place of refuge for Israeli citizens.

But that did not suddenly make Saudi Arabia a country willing to receive Israeli planes.

There is a difference between humanitarian or aviation cooperation in an emergency and diplomatic normalisation.

And perhaps that is the real story here.

The Middle East is changing. Flights connect countries that once had no relationship. Commercial interests increasingly cross political boundaries. Quiet cooperation happens where formal diplomacy has not yet followed.

But the old lines have not disappeared.

They have simply become more complicated.

So, I have no conclusion about what happened inside Flight FZ1073. Nor should anyone pretend to have one before the investigation is complete.

But I do have a few questions.

Why did the aircraft turn back after entering Jordanian airspace?

Why was Tabuk chosen?

Why did Saudi Arabia agree to receive the aircraft but refuse Israeli plane permission to retrieve the passengers?

And what does this incident tell us about the very different relationships Israel currently has with the UAE, Jordan and Saudi Arabia?

Perhaps there is nothing more to it than an extraordinary aviation emergency followed by perfectly rational decisions made under pressure.

Perhaps.

But asking questions is not the same thing as inventing answers.

A new investigation by Africa Intelligence has reported that senior figures linked to Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces travelled to Tel Aviv during the war and met Israeli officials, including representatives of the Foreign Ministry’s Africa Division and Israeli intelligence personnel. The reported visits took place in May 2025 and February 2026.

The significance of this report goes beyond the meetings themselves.

It raises a broader question about how the international community engages with the actors sustaining Sudan’s war.

The reported contacts are said to form part of a relationship that predates the current conflict. That history matters. But so does the timing: these contacts reportedly continued while Sudan was experiencing some of the worst violence and displacement in its modern history.

Sudan Futures is not suggesting that a meeting constitutes endorsement, nor that every contact between a government and a conflict actor amounts to complicity.

Diplomacy requires communication.

But diplomacy also requires clarity.

When governments maintain relationships with armed actors during an active conflict, the international community should be entitled to ask what those relationships are intended to achieve, what leverage they provide, and where the boundaries lie.

If governments have access to the parties to Sudan’s war, what are they doing with that access?

This is particularly important when the organisation involved is the RSF, a paramilitary force facing extensive allegations of atrocities against civilians and which has been the subject of international sanctions.

The question is therefore not simply:

Who is talking to whom?

It is:

What is being discussed, what influence does that relationship create, and is that influence being used to reduce the capacity for war?

That distinction matters.

Sudan’s conflict has repeatedly demonstrated that the war cannot be understood solely through events inside Sudan.

Weapons move across borders. Money moves across financial systems. Fighters move across countries. Political relationships operate far beyond the battlefield.

And now, once again, we are reminded that the diplomatic relationships surrounding Sudan’s war are equally international.

This is precisely why Sudan Futures has argued for greater scrutiny of the external architecture of the conflict.

Engagement with Sudanese actors is necessary.

But engagement should not become a substitute for accountability.

Nor should diplomatic relationships become so politically sensitive that difficult questions are left unasked.

There is also a wider lesson here.

The international community has repeatedly called for Sudanese parties to negotiate and end the war. But if influential external governments maintain channels to those same parties, they possess something potentially valuable: leverage.

The question is whether that leverage is being used.

If it is, what results are being demanded?

If it is not, why not?

And if external relationships can provide access to the people capable of prolonging the conflict, can they not also be used to press them to stop?

Sudan does not need the world to stop talking to those who hold power.

It needs the world to use those conversations more effectively.

The war has no borders. Accountability should not have them either.

Or is there something far more sinister behind his recent comments?

Benjamin Netanyahu insisting a Palestinian leader persuaded Hitler and the Nazis to carry out the Holocaust is an extremely dangerous and irresponsible allegation.

Particularly as every historical document, journal and historian confirms Hitler’s feelings towards the Jews were apparent from his early days in the army. What’s more, his plans for Europe’s Jewish population began in 1939 a whole two years before his meeting with the Palestinian leader.

Adolf Hitler did not meet the Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini until 1941, so how can he be the instigator of the most horrific event in that century?

Why then did Netanyahu blatantly lie?

Is it because he hates Palestinians so much he is willing to absolve Hitler from exterminating millions of innocent Jews? Or is there another reason for this calculated declaration?

Angela Merkel immediately responded to his comment by saying “Germany abides by its responsibility for the Holocaust. We are very clear in our minds about the Nazis’ responsibility for the break with civilisation that was the Shoah.”

Besides that, the timing of his remark is very peculiar. Some would say it is even reckless. With all the turmoil in the region not to mention the trouble in his own backyard…., his remark could not have come at a worst time. Historically the relationship between the two nations has always been volatile. However, recently they are the poorest they have been.

So I ask you again, what was the reason behind the comment?

For years Zionists have been trying to rewrite history. Change how Israel came about, redraw legal boundaries and renege on agreed promises. While failing to address how Palestinians are oppressed and terrorised in their own home and how Israel is an unkind neighbour.

The alarming thing is Zionists will stop at nothing to push every Arab out their own home. I say Zionists because most Jews inside and outside Israel accept and even welcome the two state solutions. Historically the two people happily lived side by side long before Hitler, World War II and Netanyahu came about.

So what can the reasons for this comment be? Please, someone, explain to me the one positive thing that can come out of this deliberate story.