Tony Blair came within moments of being killed when two Israeli fighter aircraft threatened to shoot down a private jet taking him to a Middle East conference in the belief that it might have been staging a terrorist attack.

The warplanes were scrambled to intercept after the jet pilot failed to contact air traffic control. Mr Blair, the international community’s envoy to the Middle East, was flying from the World Economic Forum (WEF) summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to attend a major conference on private investment in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem....

During the entire incident, Mr Blair — flying with other delegates from the WEF, who were also attending the Bethlehem conference — was not informed of the situation by the pilot.

“They were unaware of it while they were on the plane,” Ruti Winterstein, spokeswoman for Mr Blair’s office in Israel, said. “They didn’t hear about it until afterwards, from the media.”