The United Arab Emirates confirmed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the country on Sunday and met with President Mohammed bin Zayed. According to anonymous sources in several media outlets, the head of government intended to personally ask bin Zayed to deny reports that he warned Netanyahu about an impending Hamas attack before the October 7, 2023 invasion.
The information that the UAE warned the prime minister about the attack was first published by the left-wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz back in early September. After the publication, Netanyahu promised to sue the newspaper.
Israel's Channel 12 has now reported that around noon on Sunday, Netanyahu and his entourage flew on a private jet to Abu Dhabi and spent about four hours in the UAE.
According to some reports, his meeting with Mohammed bin Zayed took place right at the Abu Dhabi airport.
On Monday evening, the official UAE news agency reported that the visit had indeed taken place and the parties "discussed bilateral relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel and ways to strengthen and develop them."
The trip comes amid a growing row in Israel over reports that the UAE leader warned Netanyahu about the threat about a week and a half before the Hamas attack.
The Israeli media and the Associated Press, among others, write that the prime minister's task was to ask for a refutation.
In addition, the US Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic reported several other warnings, including from the former head of Egyptian intelligence, just days before the attack.
Netanyahu's office has strongly denied from the outset that it received any warnings about the impending attack through any channels.
It is not known for certain whether Netanyahu actually asked the UAE President to refute these reports. But Israeli political scientists note that such a step would be quite understandable in connection with the upcoming parliamentary elections in Israel, which will be very difficult for the prime minister even without this scandal.
The elections will take place on October 27 (provided that the security situation does not prevent the opening of polling stations).
"Israel's Internal Affairs"
As recently as Monday afternoon, the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to comment on reports of Netanyahu’s Sunday meeting with bin Zayed. At the same time, the department said that it maintains “open and direct channels of communication” with Israel and transmits to it “all relevant intelligence information.”
According to journalist sources in the UAE, the kingdom considers the situation with the scandal in the press to be part of Israel’s internal politics and does not want to interfere in it, especially in the run-up to the elections.
The Prime Minister's Office did not comment on the details of the trip to the UAE or its purpose. But on Monday, Netanyahu himself posted on the X Network a refutation of reports of his alleged communication with Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel before the Hamas invasion.
“For several months leading up to October 7, Prime Minister Netanyahu did not meet or speak with Abbas Kamel, who at the time headed Egypt’s General Intelligence Agency. Nor did any Israeli intelligence representative convey any warnings from Egypt to the Prime Minister,” he wrote.
Netanyahu said he intends to file a libel suit, writes the Times of Israel, but did not specify against whom exactly. Previously, his office had already threatened legal action against a number of media outlets and journalists over publications that it considered slanderous.
The prime minister also said that he never meets with heads of foreign intelligence services without their Israeli counterparts present.
Benjamin Netanyahu has consistently accused Israel's left-wing media of waging a smear campaign against him.
He also believes that publications hostile to him are trying to hold him “responsible for all the failures and crimes of [former Shin Bet head] Ronen Bar on the eve of October 7.”
According to him, on the night of October 7, Bar, the then Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, and the head of military intelligence, Major General Aharon Haliva, “discussed all the warning signs,” writes the Times of Israel.
“Despite this, Ronen Bahr decided not to call the Prime Minister and inform him, not to alert the civil defense units and IDF units on the ground, not to evacuate the Nova Festival participants, but instead only to send a small team of the elite anti-terrorism unit Tequila - which proves that he knew about the real danger,” Netanyahu said (quoted by ToI).
Netanyahu believes that Arab countries, which claim to have warned him about something, may be pursuing their goal of overthrowing his right-wing government and bringing to power his election rivals Gadi Eisenkot, Yair Golan and Avigdor Lieberman.
