Israeli agents foil plane bomb attacks in Europe

ISRAELI intelligence has helped stop terrorists from using civilian aeroplanes in Europe to carry out attacks “of the worst kind”, Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday.

The Israeli prime minister told ambassadors from Nato countries that his nation’s intelligence agencies had “helped save many European” lives by passing on warnings of jihadist plots.

He did not give details but said: “We have ... provided information that has stopped several dozen major terrorist attacks, many of them in European countries. Some of these could have been mass attacks, of the worst kind that you have experienced on the soil of Europe and even worse, because they involve civil aviation.”

Jihadist groups remain determined to try to smuggle bombs aboard civilian aircraft, according to assessments by both Western and Israeli intelligence agencies.

♦ Israeli MPS have demanded an investigation after recordings emerged of Mr Netanyahu’s son talking outside a strip club about how his father had arranged a $20billion (£15billion) deal for his friend’s business tycoon father.

The tapes were made in 2015 when Yair Netanyahu, 26, was on a night out with Ori Maimon, the son of Kobi Maimon, a major shareholder in an Israeli energy company. He appears to be referring to a contentious 2015 gas deal which Mr Netanyahu steered through parliament in the face of stiff opposition from critics. Both Mr Netanyahu and his son insisted the content of the tapes was merely drunken joking.