Aircraft mishap ends tumultuous Polish visit by Israeli premier

ISRAELI PRIME minister Benjamin Netanyahu was forced to spend an extra night in Warsaw after his plane was damaged following an airport mishap shortly before departure from Poland.

He finally left yesterday, marking an inauspicious ending to a turbulent visit.

The prime minister and his entourage were on a chartered El Al plane after a two-day visit to a high-profile security conference, when a vehicle towing the aircraft crashed into it.

Mr Netanyahu and his wife were taken off the plane and ushered back to their hotel. Other aides, including his national security adviser and his military secretary, spent the night on the aircraft.

A replacement plane was dispatched from Israel to urgently return the prime minster before the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath at sundown.

It capped a tumultuous visit for the PM, who was in Poland for a US-sponsored security conference attended by several highprofile Arab officials from Gulf countries.

He had hoped to use the gathering to showcase his budding ties with the Gulf Arabs, but on the eve of the meeting, Mr Netanyahu appeared to call on other participants to prepare for “war with Iran” in a leaked video. His office later said he had been mistranslated and only called on other countries to “combat” Iranian influence in the region.

Late on Thursday, his office briefly leaked a video showing Bahrain’s foreign minister and representatives of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates playing down the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and attacking Iran.

Mr Netanyahu’s office said the video’s release was a “technical error” and quickly deleted it.