Israeli jets scramble to intercept Blair mission

Tony Blair's mission to bring peace to the Middle East was almost brought to an end the other day when two Israeli jet fighters came close to blowing him out of the skies as he flew towards a World Economic Forum summit. The warplanes were scrambled to intercept the former Prime Minister's plane when it came into Israeli airspace without contacting air traffic control, an omission that lead the Israelis to believe they might be under a terrorist attack.

The fighters, versions of the F16 or F15 armed with deadly Shafrir and Python air-to-air missiles, flew above Blair's civilian aircraft to indicate to the pilot that he was considered a suspect target. At this point, the pilot identified himself and revealed who his distinguished passenger was.

During the entire incident, Blair, flying with other delegates from the WEF, was not informed of the situation by the pilot. "They were unaware of it while they were on the plane," Ruti Winterstein, spokeswoman for Blair's office in Jerusalem, said. "They didn’t hear about it until afterwards, from the media."

An Israeli army spokeswoman said the military would not comment on the incident, but another security source said the manoeuvre was standard procedure in such circumstances.