You don't need another generic breakdown of Middle Eastern diplomacy to understand why a recent investigative report dropped a political bombshell in Jerusalem. According to a detailed exposé published by Haaretz and backed by senior foreign sources, United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ) personally placed a 45-minute phone call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu roughly ten days before the October 7, 2023, attacks. The message was blunt: Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was planning a massive, bloody offensive that threatened regional stability and the Abraham Accords.
Netanyahu's office has flatly denied the claims, calling them an absolute lie and insisting no such phone call or warning occurred during that timeframe. Yet, the fallout has triggered fierce political blowback across Israel, drawing sharp accusations from former prime ministers and defense figures.
Breaking Down the Alleged Phone Call
The report claims that the warning originated from contacts involving a Palestinian intermediary who had ties to both Hamas and Israeli security officials. In mid-2023, Sinwar had grown increasingly frustrated by stalled prisoner release negotiations and repeatedly delayed committee approvals. Frustrated by the lack of progress, Sinwar signaled through intermediaries that he was preparing a massive surprise operation.
Recognizing the gravity of the threat, the UAE leadership decided to bypass standard bureaucratic channels. MBZ dialed Netanyahu directly in late September 2023. Sources indicate the Emirati leader urged Netanyahu to take the threat seriously, warning of heavy bloodshed and the potential collapse of security frameworks built over years of normalization.
Instead of treating the information as an urgent operational alert, Netanyahu reportedly responded with calm dismissal. He assured the UAE president that Israel had the situation in Gaza under control, expressing a belief that any major militant activity would likely stem from the West Bank instead.
Why Defense Chiefs Remained in the Dark
One of the most damaging aspects of the new investigation is the claim that Netanyahu kept the warning to himself. Former IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and former Shin Bet head Ronen Bar both stated they were never briefed on any intelligence warning originating from the UAE president.
This mirrors a nearly identical warning delivered around the same timeframe by then-Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel, who reportedly told Netanyahu that Gazans were planning "something unusual, a terrible operation." Netanyahu reportedly gave a similar reply to Cairo, maintaining that attention and military deployment should focus on the West Bank rather than the Gaza Strip.
Critics argue that these ignored alerts highlight a systemic failure at the top of the Israeli government. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett publicly backed the reporting, arguing that Netanyahu was too deeply entrenched in his long-term policy view of managing rather than confronting Hamas.
The Political Fallout and Denials
The Israeli Prime Minister's Office has pushed back aggressively against the narrative. Officials maintain that the press reports are entirely false, stating that if any valid intelligence existed, it would have flowed through standard military and intelligence channels rather than a direct leader-to-leader phone call that they insist never happened.
Opposing political figures see it differently. Party leaders and former military commanders have seized on the investigation to demand a state commission of inquiry once political conditions allow. They argue that the accumulation of unheeded warnings from regional partners like the UAE and Egypt forms a damning timeline of political negligence ahead of the deadliest day in modern Israeli history.
As public pressure mounts, the debate centers less on whether warnings were technically transmitted and more on why political leadership failed to connect dots that regional allies clearly saw coming.
UAE Warned Netanyahu 10 Days Before October 7 Attack On Israel: Report
This video provides a concise breakdown of the investigative report detailing the warning allegedly given to Benjamin Netanyahu prior to the October 7 attacks.
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