Claim: Israel Warned 30 Countries About Specific Terrorist Plots in 2017

Israeli intelligence services warned 30 countries about specific terror threats in the course of 2017, Israel Economy Minister Eli Cohen has claimed.

Mr. Cohen was speaking just days after it was revealed that Military Intelligence Unit 8200 had directly contacted Australia about a 2017 Islamic State terror plot to blow up an Etihad Airways flight on a journey from Sydney to the Middle East.

That tip via Israel’s formidable intelligence apparatus led to multiple arrests and saved hundreds of lives in the process.

“You all heard last week that Australia got a phone call from the state of Israel [with a specific warning that terrorists] intend to blow up a plane. Actually, 30 countries got phone calls from Israel in 2017, in which the State of Israel called them, and said to them: You need to know, this and that [are being planned], in this and that place, pay attention, there’s going to be an attack,” Mr. Cohen said, in a recording of his speech broadcast by Army Radio.

This is not the first time Israel’s prowess at intelligence gathering and sharing with key allies has been aired.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted as much last month when he said Israeli intelligence had helped stem the return of Islamic State fighters from battlefields in the Middle East and even prevented hijacked airplanes from being used as weapons against European cities.

“We have, through our intelligence services, provided information that has stopped several dozen major terrorist attacks, many of them in European countries,” he told Israel-based ambassadors representing members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

“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. Israel has prevented that, and thereby helped save many European lives,” Netanyahu said, apparently referring to plane hijackings.

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