The foiled hijacking of a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv carrying 174 passengers — 166 of them Israelis — on Wednesday has revived the specter of earlier hijackings (mostly attempted) of aircraft bound for Israel, especially during the 1960s and 1970s.

Although associated with the past, Israel still treats such attempts as a current threat. Its flag carrier, El Al, maintains strict security measures, ranging from plainclothes security officers on board, a double-door system to access the cockpit, and extensive passenger interrogations conducted by its own staff at departure airports. If an interrogation raises even the slightest suspicion, some travelers are forced to board stripped of their personal belongings.

The precedents involve planes from that airline, although only the first, in 1968, succeeded. The flight, which operated between Rome and Tel Aviv, departed late due to technical problems with just 38 passengers aboard — seven of them El Al employees or their relatives — and 10 crew members. Near Naples it was hijacked by three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist-inspired armed group that forced the aircraft to divert to Algiers. They demanded the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails in exchange for the hostages.

Barely 24 hours later, it released the 23 passengers of other nationalities. Later, it freed the 10 women and children. Thus, 12 Israeli men remained as prisoners of the Algerian government (which was technically at war with Israel). Aligned with the Palestinian cause, and in the midst of the Cold War, Algerian authorities eventually demanded the release of all Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

The Israelis who had been hijacked were finally moved to a luxurious villa where they could follow news of the negotiations for their release on radio and in newspapers. Meanwhile, the Israeli military devised a rescue plan under the orders of the famed defense minister, Moshe Dayan. The hijacking lasted 40 days and ended with the release of 16 Palestinian prisoners, a move Israel described as a “humanitarian gesture.”

In 1970 one of the most notorious attempts occurred, notable for the status its perpetrator attained (Leila Khaled, the first woman to hijack a plane) and because she carried it out alongside Patrick Argüello, a member of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas who later helped overthrow the Somoza dictatorship.

Six years later, at the end of June 1976, an Air France plane flying the Tel Aviv–Paris route with a stop in Athens, carrying 248 passengers and 12 crew, was hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and diverted to Entebbe airport in Uganda. After the initial release of non‑Israeli passengers, most of those who remained on board were freed by Israeli commandos in the early hours of July 4. Four passengers were killed, in addition to the hijackers and one Israeli soldier.

Since then, and until this Wednesday, there had been no new hijacking attempts. Largely, that is because security measures at Israeli airports and on Israeli aircraft have increased exponentially decade by decade, unparalleled anywhere else in the world. There have been attempts to attack planes with explosives, or to fire projectiles at aircraft originating from or destined for Israel. But not hijackings.

In 1986, a Syrian intelligence agent tried to blow up a London–Tel Aviv flight using explosives carried — unbeknown to her — by his girlfriend, who was traveling on that flight. Security agents thwarted his plans.

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The Dictionary of the Spanish Language explains that a geoglyph is a “large figure on slopes or in wide plains, carved directly into the ground or made with stones, especially by prehistoric peoples.” Of all those located worldwide, the most famous are the Nazca lines (Peru), which have been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. They are visible only from surrounding mountains or from the air, which gives them an aura of mystery. Now, a group of researchers from Argentina and Spain will study a structure that could be a geoglyph discovered last year at about 3,000 meters above sea level in the Tigre mountain range (Argentina) and which was found by mountaineer Carlos Gobbi while consulting Google Earth. A joint expedition will attempt to examine it in situ in December.

Cristina Prieto-Olavarría of the IANIGLA-CONICET institute, an archaeologist and the project’s principal investigator for Argentina, and co-director Horacio Chiavazza of the Laboratory of Historical Archaeology and Ethnohistory, (FFyL, National University of Cuyo), told the Argentine newspaper La Nación: “There are no precedents of this either in news reports or in publications. It is an unprecedented find for archaeology. It is not a common archaeological site; there is no other like it in Mendoza (western Argentina).”

The research is part of Arqueoandes, a collaborative project between researchers from both countries whose lead experts are Prieto-Olavarría and Mario Gutiérrez of the University Institute for Research in Iberian Archaeology at the University of Jaén. The project seeks to study landscape transformation in the high Andes and the impact of different historical processes on the environment.

Gobbi’s discovery via Google Earth occurred in May 2025, but it needed to be verified on site, so the mountaineer made a first expedition in September of last year. He was unable to reach the location. The same happened again in November due to the weather and the physical conditions imposed by the Andean range. Only in February of this year did he reach the archaeological site, after a four-day trek with hardly any water and no phone connection.

At the site he found linear stone structures that formed corridors, as well as what appeared to be piled stone mounds. The corridors exceeded 30 meters in length. He took photographs and showed them to Prieto-Olavarría and Chiavazza, who, from those images alone, could not determine either the date of construction or the function of the structures.

Faced with that challenge, the Spanish-Argentine interdisciplinary team will attempt a new ascent in December to date and interpret the structures. One hypothesis they are considering is that the construction could be linked to the Inca period (15th and 16th centuries), although they are not ruling out an earlier or later origin. Regarding function, it may have served multiple purposes over time, such as a seasonal camp. There are elements, they say in a statement, that support that possibility. “The site is in an area that is very difficult to access and without water. It also does not appear to have been a site of permanent occupation,” they maintain.

This hypothesis is reinforced by the fact that Gobbi did not find, aside from the structures, any archaeological material on the surface — no ceramics or food remains that would suggest permanent occupation. Archaeological activities in the area will clarify whether there are other occupations near the structure.

If the site were indeed Inca, it might be related to that society’s sacred conception of the landscape, in which mountains, trails, and other landmarks were interconnected within a territory steeped in meaning.

The specialists plan to carry out high-precision terrain analysis, foot surveys, and geochemical studies, drone work, remote sensing, and geoarchaeology investigation. The goal is not only to reconstruct what the people who occupied or used that space did, but also what the environment was like at that time. “We will be able to work on environmental aspects related to water availability, climatic events, and also human events,” they explain.

The research will be carried out jointly with specialists from the University Institute for Research in Iberian Archaeology at the University of Jaén. The institute’s director, Juan Pedro Bellón, describes the find as “first-rate” and highlights the importance of collaboration between the two institutions.

Meanwhile, researcher Mario Gutiérrez, co-director of the project for Spain, says that the University of Jaén will contribute advanced methods to analyze sediments and botanical remains at a microscopic scale, with the aim of reconstructing landscape evolution and the activities undertaken by past societies.

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