The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has reported that UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about a week before the 7 October 2023 attack that Hamas was preparing a major operation (Dawn).
The chain as reported
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar told a former Palestinian official that the group was preparing “a terrifying operation”, described as an “earthquake”. That official passed the message to an Emirati adviser, who relayed it to the UAE president, who telephoned Netanyahu.
Haaretz reports that Netanyahu “replied calmly to the warning.”
The denial
Netanyahu’s office called the report “an absolute lie” and denied that he spoke to the Emirati leader at that time.
The reaction in Israel
Former military chief Gadi Eisenkot: “Netanyahu received dozens of warnings for Oct 7 and ignored them all. He is unfit.”
Former prime minister Naftali Bennett: “Netanyahu cannot continue to serve in his position for even one more minute.”
How much weight this can bear
The account passes through four people before reaching Netanyahu, and Haaretz’s sourcing for each link is not public. The denial is categorical and specific — not that the warning was vague, but that the call did not happen.
One of those two positions is false, and there is a way to establish which: phone records and the UAE’s own account. Neither has been produced. The UAE had not commented at the time of writing.
Why it lands now
Because it is not a standalone claim. It joins a documented body of pre-7 October intelligence that Israeli commissions and reporting have already established was received and discounted — which is why Eisenkot’s phrasing is “dozens of warnings” rather than “a warning”. A denial that rests on one phone call not happening does not answer the pattern.
What is not established
This newspaper has not seen the Haaretz report directly and is reporting the existence of the claim and the denial, not adjudicating between them. No Israeli commission has ruled on this specific allegation.
[Image: AFP via Dawn]
