One week after the attempted terror attack aboard a flydubai flight, President Isaac Herzog on Thursday presented civilian bravery awards to six Israelis who rushed the attacker, subdued him and helped prevent him from crashing the plane.
The awards were presented at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem to Tali Manes, Zvika Manes, Yaniv Hayun, Asaf Rajuan, Or Pardilov and Dr. Shota Musaiev, who also provided life-saving medical treatment to the flight’s captain after he was stabbed by the attacker.
Herzog honors six Israelis who thwarted Flydubai terror attack
(Photo: GPO)
The six thanked Herzog for the recognition. “It is a great honor that the president chose to award me the bravery medal,” Hayun said. “It will be displayed proudly in our home, and my children will be able to see it every day.”
Tali Mans said: “Apparently I’m a mother with maternal intuition, and I was in the right place at the right time, with the best possible people.”
Her husband, Tzvika Mans said it was the cries of his daughters that drove him to act. “When a parent hears a scream like that, you act without thinking,” he said.
Musaiev described the chain of events as a series of extraordinary coincidences. “A lot of miracles happened that day,” he said. “We were a chain of people helping one another, and if one link had been missing, the chain would have broken. Everyone acted heroically.”
Herzog praised the six for what he called extraordinary civilian courage.
“I have the privilege and honor of hosting you here at the President’s Residence, recognizing the tremendous civilian bravery embodied in your actions and bearing witness to one of the most chilling aviation stories known to humanity in general and Israeli society in particular,” Herzog said.
“This was a story in which there was no time to think, formulate a plan, consult or prepare. A story written without orders and without a briefing, without ranks and without prior coordination. A story in which fate was decided in a single moment. A moment in which a person discovers who they really are. A moment in which we discover who Israelis are.”
Herzog said the lives of all 174 people aboard the plane, as well as potentially many more on the ground, had been at stake.
“Tali, you immediately recognized what was happening and called for help; Yaniv, Tzvika, Or and Assaf, you jumped into danger, subdued the attacker and helped bring the aircraft back under control; and you, Dr. Musaiev, helped overpower him and also provided life-saving treatment to the wounded pilot,” Herzog said.
“You are the six who prevented a major aviation disaster, a disaster that would have changed the face of the country and the Middle East.”
Herzog also praised the flight’s captain, Smit Machchhar, who continued fighting the attacker despite being badly wounded and managed, with his remaining strength, to open the cockpit door.
“From here, on behalf of all of us, I send him wishes for a full and speedy recovery,” Herzog said. “I also intend to honor him, as the committee recommended, with the President’s Civilian Bravery Award.”
Herzog thanked the replacement pilots and other passengers who assisted during the incident, saying their actions would also be examined and recognized.
At the same time, the president stressed that the passengers’ heroism could not substitute for a full investigation into how the attack was allowed to happen.
“The civilian courage and resourcefulness demonstrated by the heroes here cannot cover up the obligation to provide full answers,” Herzog said. “Everyone deserves clear and satisfactory answers.”
‘Resourcefulness is a way of life’
Herzog said the award reflected not only the lives the six had saved but also what their response revealed about Israeli society.
“Tali, Yaniv, Tzvika, Or, Assaf, Dr. Shota, the Civilian Bravery Award does not symbolize only the fact that you saved lives,” he said. “It is also being awarded because, at the moment of truth, you revealed something much deeper: you revealed the face of the Israeli spirit. A spirit of courage. A spirit of tremendous resourcefulness. A spirit that says: when there is danger, you act.”
“You did not stop to ask one another, ‘Which side are you on?’ ‘Who are you planning to vote for?’ ‘Where do you come from?’ or ‘What is your worldview?’ You did not look for what divided you, because when the plane was in the air and lives hung in the balance, all those disagreements were meaningless,” he added.
“There was only one thing left: the person beside you. Your responsibility toward them. The duty to save them. That sacred mutual responsibility.”
Herzog noted that the ceremony came one day after the third anniversary, on the Gregorian calendar, of the October 7 massacre.
“Over these three years, time and again we have seen Israeli society at its finest,” he said. “A society that, in its hardest moments, proves that resourcefulness is not just a characteristic, it is a way of life.”
“This moment is also a reminder to all of us of the society we want to live in and the Israelis we want to be: a society in which, in difficult moments, we do not ask who is standing beside us, we stand beside one another. A society that does not ask who belongs to which camp, but who needs our help right now.”