The Air Force helicopter pilots who were invited on Thursday to fly Netanyahu from the Hadassah Ein Kerem airstrip to Israel were not informed that they were part of a fraudulent exercise. The pilots – the squadron commander and a reserve pilot – only discovered that the PM had been flown to the airport by a police helicopter when they were informed that they were released from the mission and were allowed to fly back to the base.
The story was published by Ben Caspit. An official involved in the details told here news that the flight was ordered from the Air Force in advance as is customary, and that the pilots realized that they were required to fly the Prime Minister to Israel, and only in retrospect did the squadron realize that their role was part of a fraudulent exercise.
Last Thursday, the day of Netanyahu’s trip to Rome and the day of the national “resistance” of the protesters against the legal reform, Netanyahu stationed a military helicopter at the airstrip in Hadassah in Jerusalem in order to mislead the protesters but flew to Ben Gurion Airport in a police helicopter from another location.
On the same day, senior officials of the Prime Minister’s Office and his office preceded their arrival at the airport and were recorded doing duty free shopping while some demonstrators with Israeli flags also arrived at Terminal 3 at the airport to protest.