One of the pilots of a plane flying from the United Arab Emirates to Israel stabbed his co-pilot and appeared to try to crash the aircraft, according to the Israeli prime minister Netanyahu.

Eyewitnesses reported chaos onboard the flydubai flight, as the attacker tried to barricade himself and the wounded co-pilot in the cockpit, and then attempted to disable the controls, forcing the plane to descend 17,000 feet in just two minutes. A passenger later recounted how he and other passengers heard screaming and felt pressure as the plane dived before forcing their way into the cockpit and finding the attacker at the instrument panel. As others wrestled with the attacker, the passenger grabbed the controls and pulled them the way he had seen on television, before other crew members took over.

The stabbed pilot was identified as Indian national Captain Smit Machchhar, who was said to have made the emergency call and opened the door to the cockpit, allowing others to rush in and subdue the attacker. The plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, with the two pilots wounded but other passengers safe.

Israeli officials said they are investigating whether the incident was an attempted terror attack on Israelis. US President Trump said he spoke to Netanyahu on Wednesday, but suggested that the motive behind the incident remained unclear.

SpaceX has launched its enormous Starship into orbit for the first time, deploying Starlink satellites before returning to Earth early due to an engine issue.

The spacecraft almost did not achieve the long-desired goal in its Monday launch, after one of its three engines shut down too soon. The mission was scheduled to last 10 hours, but was reduced to three hours after the engine problem.

This time, SpaceX had hoped the Starship would circle the globe from an altitude of 275 kilometres — not just once but six times over almost 10 hours, ending with a Pacific splashdown near Chile.

Musk originally developed Starship for Mars, intending to launch scores of them with the red planet’s first settlers. For now, he plans to focus on the moon and use Starship to haul satellites into orbit by truckload — phasing out the company’s frailer Falcon 9 rocket within several years. NASA’s Artemis IV mission, slated for no sooner than 2028, would have astronauts landing on the moon in either Jeff Bezos’s Blue Moon or Musk’s Starship, whichever is ready first.

Britain’s Foreign secretary Ed Miliband will tell campaigners and party members who raised the plight of Palestinians they were right that Labour’s approach had not been enough, saying he was heeding the calls of millions of people by imposing sanctions on Israeli settlements.

He stated he would ensure Labour is going to take more explicitly progressive foreign policy positions under Andy Burnham, and that the UK will be a leader among like-minded countries in a new age of diplomacy.

Since becoming foreign secretary, Miliband has announced sweeping sanctions on trade with Israeli settlements against a backdrop of increasing settler violence in the West Bank, which has resulted in 12 countries – including France and Canada – announcing they would also impose sanctions.

Miliband will also pay tribute to those who have campaigned against the Israeli onslaught in Gaza, though his warm words are likely to raise questions about whether the government will review the proscription of Palestine Action, when police arrested a number of demonstrators outside the conference hall on Sunday.