Overview
- Haaretz reports that UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for about 45 minutes roughly ten days before the October 7, 2023 Hamas assault to warn that Hamas planned a major operation.
- The allegation appears in a forthcoming book by Haaretz journalists and is said to rely on dozens of sources, recordings and internal documents, and Haaretz has stood by the account.
- The Prime Minister’s Office issued a categorical denial, said it checked call and visitor logs with no record of the call and said Netanyahu has directed lawyers to sue Haaretz and the reporters.
- Opposition leaders have seized the report to demand an independent investigation into pre-October 7 intelligence handling and are using the dispute as a central issue in the October 2026 election campaign.
- The claim ties into earlier reports that Egyptian intelligence and intermediaries warned Israel before Oct. 7 and raises questions about how international warnings are routed to Israel’s Shin Bet, Mossad and the IDF and what the legal and political fallout could be.