Odd story. Shame they didn't allow themselves to get arrested.
That was my reaction, but apparently they thought they would land in Dubai before shabbos and and had people in JNB trying to arrange shabbos for them. Iinm, they miscalculated and it ended up being shabbos by the time they landed. I'm not sure why they boarded the next plane, though being arrested in Dubai is an entirely different prospect to getting arrested in Israel.
Be that as it may, it's impossible to judge what they should have done or what we would have done. We weren't going through that stress. Flying in general is highly stressful for many, for many it manifests in extreme ways that often aren't appreciated by frequent flyers on forums like this.
When someone is threatening you after a full day/night of traveling in the same week a boy you watched grow up was shot dead in cold blood - it is exceedingly difficult to think clearly and make decisions. The onus should not be on exhausted, distressed passengers to choose to *get arrested*, but on the Jewish state to protect Jews from being forced by a state to transgress Judaism.
I'm honestly shocked this isn't a massive international incident. As I said on Twitter, if any other country had done such a thing, Naftali Bennet would lose his mind condemning them:
https://twitter.com/Squilled/status/1465058416225837058