Haaretz Says UAE President Warned Netanyahu Before Hamas’ October 7 Attack

A Haaretz investigation says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “received an explicit warning before Hamas’s attacks on October 7, 2023” after President of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed held a 45-minute phone conversation with him roughly a week and a half before the attack, warning that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was preparing a major operation against Israel.

“received an explicit warning before Hamas’s attacks on October 7, 2023”

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The report says Netanyahu replied that he believed Hamas intended to carry out an operation in the occupied West Bank and assured bin Zayed that Israel was prepared for any scenario, but that Netanyahu did not inform the heads of Security, Shin Bet, Mossad, or the chief of staff of the Israeli army about the conversation.

AP News

A senior Shin Bet official, cited by Haaretz, said that having been aware of the warnings “could have completely changed our assessment of the situation.”

Netanyahu’s office and the Prime Minister’s Office forcefully rejected the account, with one statement asserting “Prime Minister Netanyahu did not speak with the President of the United Arab Emirates during the period in question and did not receive any warning from him.”

CNN en Español reported that Netanyahu faced a strong political backlash after the Haaretz report alleged the UAE president warned him about a major Hamas operation days before the October 7, 2023 attack, and that Netanyahu’s rivals framed it as part of a growing list of warnings he ignored.C

The four leaders of the opposition parties—Gadi Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett, Avigdor Lieberman, and Yair Golan—issued a joint statement calling for “an immediate and thorough investigation” into Netanyahu’s “failures and malfunction.”

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In the same reporting, Naftali Bennett said the report is “true” and wrote on X that Netanyahu’s supposed disregard for the warnings constitutes “criminal negligence.”

The UAE Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the Haaretz report, saying that “the Government of the UAE does not comment on media reports or speculation about conversations between government leaders,” while Netanyahu’s office denied the call and said “The news reports are false. No warnings were directed to the Israeli prime minister from the United Arab Emirates before October 7.”

The dispute over whether Netanyahu received and acted on the alleged UAE warning is playing out as Israel’s election campaign returns October 7 and the war in Gaza to the center of political debate, with the attack described as leaving about 1,200 people dead and more than 250 kidnapped and taken to Gaza.

“left about 1,200 people dead in Israel”

Euronews

Euronews reported that the October 7 attacks “left about 1,200 people dead in Israel” and that the war ended with a ceasefire brokered by the United States in October 2025 after a broad Israeli military campaign in the sector.E

It also said that Gaza’s Health Ministry, run by Hamas, reported the Palestinian death toll exceeded 73,600, with no breakdown between civilians.

In the same coverage, former government spokesperson Elior Levy called the attack a “strategic failure” for Israel and said that if the UAE warning story is correct, it would be hard to explain why the information was not conveyed, unless it was deemed unreliable.