Unauthorized Egyptian passenger aircraft have been increasingly violating Israel's airspace near Eilat, prompting the IAF to station Hawk anti-aircraft missile batteries and fighter planes close by, ready to shoot down the Egyptian planes if they take a hostile turn. In several cases, fighter jets have actually been scrambled, then returning quietly to base.
The beefed-up air defense is also there to deal with potential attacks by Saudi Arabian F-15s, deployed at the Tobuq air base just 200 kilometers away despite Israeli protests. Israel has received intelligence that al-Qaida has recruited Saudi fighter pilots and fears they could stage a 9/11-type surprise attack.
The air force, which is on constant alert for potential suicide aircraft, has been increasingly on edge over the past few months as the unapproved Egyptian violations have multiplied.
Since the 1979 peace treaty, Egyptian aircraft have been permitted to fly over Israeli airspace in certain corridors. Even before then, they were able to use an international air corridor from the Jordanian airport in Aqaba, southward along the Gulf of Eilat, toward Sharm e-Sheikh and Cairo. However, many Egyptian aircraft have been taking a western shortcut, without prior Israeli approval, right over the Eilat port and Taba border region. For the watching IAF, this is nerve-janglingly close to the populous hotel area.
In the past six months, there have been at least 25 unauthorized penetrations of Israeli airspace by Egyptian aircraft. All of them have been by passenger jets, not military aircraft. The matter has been taken up "at the highest levels," but so far the Egyptians appear to have done nothing to stop it.
The air force wants to be in a situation in which it can take immediate action should the foreign aircraft suddenly make a maneuver that appears hostile, like changing course and heading toward one of the major hotel complexes or the massive oil storage depot. A decision on downing such a plane would have to be taken within minutes, at most.
As it worries over the potential risk, the air force has begun renovating the long-dormant Uvda air base, about 45 kilometers north of Eilat, to station fighter jets. the IAF has also recently deployed Hawk anti-aircraft batteries closer to the city.
Israel's monitoring of the region's airspace for potential hostile penetrations has, understandably, always been thorough. But since 9/11, the air force has been particularly alert, monitoring potential areas of threat via designated zones.
Only four people have the authority to order the downing of a passenger jet – the prime minister, defense minister, chief of General Staff and commander of the air force. The threat of a hijacked plane being crashed into an Israeli target is so worrisome that a test-drill, with aides to each of the key quartet, is held every week.
Jordanian jets, too, fly over Israel, but they have never been known to violate the procedures by departing from agreed routes. For the moment, indeed, overall airspace cooperation with Jordan is very good. The Jordanians have even granted Israeli carriers permission to fly over the Moab mountains on their flights to Eilat in order to avoid potential clashes with IAF training flights. The Egyptian flights aside, one of the main worries in the IAF relates to Saudi Arabia's F-15 squadron in Tabuq. Until last year, Saudi Arabia had been restricted by the US from deploying F-15s at Tabuq to minimize friction with Israel. But the US, which sold the planes to the Saudis in 1991, lifted that restriction as a modest concession in return for Saudi approval for overflights for US aircraft and missiles striking Iraq.
