Overview
- Haaretz published an excerpt from a new book saying UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed spent about 45 minutes on the phone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu roughly ten days before Oct. 7, 2023 and warned that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was planning a major operation.
- The report says Netanyahu did not inform the heads of Shin Bet, Mossad or the IDF chief of staff about the alleged warning, and a senior Shin Bet official told Haaretz that that knowledge could have changed the agency’s threat assessment.
- The Prime Minister’s Office issued a categorical denial, calling the account an “absolute lie” and saying Netanyahu did not speak with the UAE president during the period in question.
- Opposition leaders and bereaved families immediately renewed calls for an independent state inquiry and used the report as an election issue, saying the claim deepens questions about political and legal accountability for the Oct. 7 failures.
- Haaretz says its account is based on interviews, recordings and internal documents in the book 'Kidnapped: 843 Days of Abandonment,' but no public record from the UAE or independent declassification confirming the alleged call has been produced.