Netanyahu under fire over report on UAE warning ahead of 2023 attack
TEL AVIV
A report in the Israeli press alleging that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was personally warned by the leader of the United Arab Emirates about Hamas’ attack in October 2023 has triggered a political firestorm in the country, with the premier announcing that he would sue the newspaper that published the report.
On Sept. 8, Haaretz newspaper, in a report excerpted from a forthcoming book by its reporters, said United Arab Emirates President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan spoke to Netanyahu a week and a half before the attack and told him that Hamas was planning a major operation.
The newspaper, quoting mostly anonymous sources, said that Netanyahu replied calmly to the warning.
The intelligence chiefs serving at the time told the newspaper that Netanyahu had not briefed them on any such warning.
In the latest development, Netanyahu announced on Sept. 9 that he will file a defamation lawsuit against the newspaper and Shlomi Eldar, the journalist who authored the report.
“This is a sinister libel with clear political timing, as part of the left’s election campaign, and there will be more such false libels,” he said.
The UAE Foreign Ministry said it did not comment on media speculation but acknowledged “open and direct lines of communication” since Abu Dhabi established relations with Israel.
Israeli opposition leaders called Netanyahu unfit to serve after the bombshell report.
Gadi Eisenkot, a former military commander who has emerged as Netanyahu’s top rival in upcoming Oct. 27 elections, accused the long-serving prime minister of evading responsibility for security lapses and resorting to “pathetic” excuses, such as saying he was not woken up soon enough on the morning of the attack.
“Netanyahu received dozens of warnings for October 7 and ignored them all. He is unfit,” Eisenkot wrote on X.
Naftali Bennett, a former prime minister also running in the elections, said Netanyahu “bears personal and direct responsibility” for the deaths on Oct. 7, 2023, the deadliest attack in Israeli history.
Meanwhile, alongside Haaretz’s report about the alleged warning from the UAE, previously reported warnings conveyed to Israel by Egypt ahead of Oct. 7 have also resurfaced.
According to reports in the Israeli media, the Shin Bet received a warning from its Egyptian counterparts that Hamas was preparing an operation that would “cause the ground to shake” in Gaza, and that information was subsequently passed on to Netanyahu.
In October 2023, Hamas stormed into Israel in a rampage that included mass killing at a music festival.
The attack killed 1,221 people. The militants also dragged into Gaza some 251 hostages, 44 of them already dead.
The massive Israeli offensive in response has left most of Gaza in ruins and killed 73,658 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.