Odd flight path: Netanyahu's plane gives Europe wide birth; here's why

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took an unusually long and indirect route from Tel Aviv to New York this week, sparking speculation about the influence of international legal pressures on his travels. His destination: the high-stakes United Nations General Assembly session.

Flight tracking data from FlightRadar24 revealed that Netanyahu’s official aircraft avoided major swaths of European airspace on Thursday. Instead of taking the direct path over Europe, the plane skirted the eastern Mediterranean, made a brief pass over Greece and Italy, then swung sharply southwest over the Strait of Gibraltar before heading across the Atlantic. The detour added nearly two and a half hours, turning a standard 10-hour Tel Aviv–JFK flight into almost 13 hours.

Israel has not publicly explained the unusual route, but experts suggest it is tied to the increasing diplomatic shadow cast by the International Criminal Court (ICC). In 2024, the ICC issued an arrest warrant against Netanyahu over alleged war crimes committed during Israel’s military operations in Gaza. While Netanyahu has dismissed the charges as “absurd and false,” the warrant has introduced new complications for his international travel.