According to reports from Haaretz, at the end of September 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu had a 45-minute phone call with UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (often abbreviated as MBZ). The latter urgently warned on the phone that the extremist organization Hamas was about to launch a large-scale attack. Just a few days later, Hamas launched a raid, killing nearly 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages. Israel's subsequent retaliatory offensive in Gaza has continued to this day and has killed thousands of people.
The news also claimed that the President of the United Arab Emirates and Netanyahu often talk on the phone, and the staff of the UAE Embassy in Israel set up a dedicated phone line specifically for this purpose. Breaking news reporter Shlomi Eldar also revealed on the Israeli public broadcaster KAN's program that although the President of the United Arab Emirates has repeatedly persuaded Netanyahu to pay attention to this intelligence, the Israeli Prime Minister insists that the threat from the West Bank is greater than that of Gaza. The "Haaretz" reporter further accused Netanyahu of concealing this important intelligence: "He did not convene a special meeting on this, nor did he tell senior Israeli security officials about this information. The consequence of this is: we experienced all this on October 7, 2023."
The center-left Haaretz newspaper published this heavy-hitting investigative report at a very delicate time: at the end of October this year, the Israeli Knesset will hold general elections, and the future of Netanyahu and his far-right camp is uncertain. After the report was published, the matter was hotly debated across Israel: Did Netanyahu really receive the warning in advance? Why on earth did he hide it and not report it? At present, the Israeli Prime Minister himself has not expressed his position on this, but his staff firmly called this revelation "fake news on the eve of the election" and a "blatant fabrication of facts."
The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued an official statement that neither admitted nor denied, saying that officials from the two countries have had direct communication channels since the formal establishment of diplomatic relations five years ago. "If necessary, all important information will be exchanged between the relevant departments of the two countries."
Reporter Elda, who broke the news, firmly refuted the accusation of trying to influence the election. He said that this investigative report is actually part of a book he is writing, and the manuscript has just been completed. "In fact, I have been worried that the contents of the book manuscript will be revealed in advance. In the past year and a half, I was lucky enough to find three sources through investigation. I have made detailed investigation records and cross-references for the contents of my current revelations. This really took a long time."
But no matter what, the center-left camp is now a treasure trove. Four center-left parties issued a rare joint statement emphasizing that the Israeli people have the right to know the truth about the attack on October 7, 2023. The center-left camp also stated that if elected to power, it would immediately establish an independent national commission of inquiry.
The families of the victims of the October 7, 2023 attack have been demanding in recent years that an independent commission be set up to investigate the negligence of Netanyahu and his ruling coalition in the incident. But Netanyahu insists that the investigative committee should be government-led, or what critics call "investigating itself."
This is not the first time that the Israeli government has been accused of knowing about Hamas attacks in advance but concealing them. Just last year, Netanyahu himself even accused former intelligence chief Ronen Bar of not reporting what he knew. Such accusations are fueling various conspiracy theories about the October 7 attack, with implications far beyond Israel.
