Freddie Ponton
21st Century Wire

Since October 7, Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly denied that he was warned about Hamas’s war intentions before the attack. A new Haaretz investigation, now supported by separate Emirati confirmation, points to an explicit warning that reached him but was not passed to Israel’s security chiefs. His denial is no longer a response at the edge of the story; It has now become the story.

According to the Haaretz investigation, the president of the United Arab Emirates called Netanyahu from Abu Dhabi roughly ten days before the October 7 attack. During the reported 45-minute conversation, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan warned him that Yahya Sinwar was preparing a major operation against Israel and that Israel needed to take the threat seriously.

Netanyahu responded that Hamas was more likely to act in the West Bank and assured bin Zayed that Israel was prepared. An Emirati source familiar with the conversation confirmed to The Times of Israel that the call took place and that bin Zayed warned Netanyahu of a major Hamas attack, corroborating the account by Haaretz journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval.

Haaretz reported that Netanyahu did not tell the heads of the Shin Bet or Mossad, or the IDF chief of staff, about the call. Ronen Bar and Herzi Halevi have since said that no warning from bin Zayed was passed to them.

The warning had begun earlier that month with Sinwar himself. He told a Fatah intermediary that he was preparing a zilzal, an earthquake, and instructed him to alert the Israelis. The message reached Bar on September 15, prompting the Shin Bet chief to brief Netanyahu.

A security meeting followed two days later, but ended without a decision. When Bar returned to the issue on October 1, he proposed targeting senior Hamas leaders, including Sinwar. A security source later confirmed to Maariv that Bar warned Netanyahu that Hamas was “preparing something extreme,” repeated the word “earthquake” and recommended a targeted strike against Sinwar.

Netanyahu did not accept the recommendation. He told officials to continue preparing the capability but, for the moment, to calm the situation.

IMAGE: Benjamin Netanyahu with security chiefs Ronen Bar and Herzi Halevi, who say the Emirati warning was not passed to them. (Source: Kobi Gideon, GPO)

The denial that keeps returning

On October 29, 2023, Netanyahu wrote on X that “at no time and no stage was a warning given to Prime Minister Netanyahu regarding war intentions of Hamas.” Israel’s security chiefs, he said, had instead assessed that Hamas was deterred and interested in an arrangement.

IMAGE: Netanyahu’s since-deleted X post claiming that he had received no warning of Hamas’s war intentions. (Source: Screenshot by Antonello Guerrera on X)

The post caused an immediate political uproar. About ten hours later, Netanyahu deleted it. “I was wrong,” he wrote on X, adding that the remarks “should not have been made” and apologising to the security chiefs he had blamed.

IMAGE: Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the country alongside the security chiefs he later blamed for the October 7 failure. (Source: Reuters)

The dispute resurfaced in February 2025, when Channel 12 reported that Bar had urged Netanyahu to authorise Sinwar’s assassination shortly before October 7. The Prime Minister’s Office called the account “a complete lie”. It said Bar had recommended economic concessions for Gaza while Netanyahu had pushed for escalation.

A security source familiar with the October 1 meeting has now challenged that account. According to the source, Bar warned Netanyahu that Hamas was preparing “something extreme” and recommended targeting Sinwar.

Responding to the Haaretz investigation, Netanyahu’s office called it “an absolute lie” and said he neither spoke to bin Zayed during the period in question nor received a warning from him. By denying that the conversation took place, rather than disputing how the warning was understood or assessed, Netanyahu’s office left two accounts that cannot both be true.

Testing the denial

Netanyahu’s office had denied that bin Zayed called to warn Netanyahu of a major Hamas operation before October 7. Hours later, it expanded its account, saying no warning had come from the UAE and that any relevant information would have reached Israel through intelligence channels.

In an English-language post on its official X account, the office said:

The Prime Minister’s Office:

The press reports are false. No warning was given to the Prime Minister from the United Arab Emirates before October 7th. If there was any relevant information , it was passed through intelligence channels between the two countries.

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) September 8, 2026

Netanyahu’s office has since made its denial more specific. Netanyahu sent a warning letter ahead of a proposed libel suit against Haaretz and journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval. In the accompanying statement, he said that the Prime Minister’s Office, National Security Council and Military Secretariat had examined his call records and found no conversation with bin Zayed between the beginning of September 2023 and October 7. The office also said that calls between the two leaders normally took place inside the Prime Minister’s Office using an encrypted telephone brought by an Emirati representative, and that all such conversations were documented. It said that entry records showed no Emirati representative entering the building during that period and that entry without security registration was impossible.

Those claims directly address the mechanism described in the Haaretz investigation, which reported that an Emirati embassy representative would bring a dedicated secure telephone for Netanyahu’s conversations with bin Zayed. The official records claim therefore sharpens rather than settles the dispute. Netanyahu’s office says the documentation contains no trace of the reported call, while Haaretz says the conversation took place through the established communications procedure described in its investigation.

IMAGE: An official UAE announcement documenting an earlier telephone call between Mohamed bin Zayed and Benjamin Netanyahu. (Source: UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

Eldar has directly challenged the records-based denial. “I have the document, I have records, I have everything that shows that the president of the UAE called Netanyahu a week and a half before October 7,” he told CNN. The dispute has therefore narrowed from conflicting recollections to competing claims about documentary records that should, in principle, be capable of verification.

The Prime Minister’s Office approached the UAE seeking a denial, according to an Israeli source cited by CNN. Abu Dhabi declined to issue one. Instead, it said it does not comment on reports or speculation about conversations between government leaders, while noting that Israeli and Emirati agencies maintain direct channels and exchange relevant intelligence when necessary. The response preserved a degree of ambiguity, but notably did not support Netanyahu’s categorical denial. An Emirati source familiar with the conversation subsequently confirmed to The Times of Israel that bin Zayed had warned Netanyahu about a planned Hamas attack.

Statement by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Response to Media Reporting

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs underscores that the UAE Government does not comment on media stories or speculation regarding conversations between government leaders.

The UAE’s engagement since…

— Afra Al Hameli (@AfraMalHameli) September 8, 2026

The warnings converged

Shortly before October 7, Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel warned Netanyahu that Hamas was preparing “something unusual, a terrible operation,” according to Smadar Perry of Yedioth Ahronoth. Netanyahu reportedly replied that Gaza was under control and that the greater concern lay in the West Bank. It was almost the same answer Haaretz later attributed to him when bin Zayed raised the danger from Gaza.

Netanyahu’s office has renewed its denial that Egypt issued such a warning. But in October 2023, after a classified congressional briefing, Michael McCaul, then chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that Egypt had warned Israel three days before the attack that “an event like this could happen.” McCaul said a warning had been given, although it remained unclear “at what level.” His account supports the existence of an Egyptian warning to Israel.

IMAGE: Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel meets Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. Both Perry and Bennett say Kamel warned Netanyahu before October 7. (Source: JNS)

Between March and July 2023, Military Intelligence sent Netanyahu four letters describing how Israel’s enemies viewed the damage caused by its internal divisions. The letters did not identify the plan that became the October 7 attack, but warned that Israel’s political crisis was altering its enemies’ assessment of its strength and deterrence.

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett told 103FM that he knew “for a fact” that Netanyahu had received warnings from bin Zayed and Kamel that Sinwar was preparing a major operation. “I’m telling you that I know this fact is true,” he said. Asked later by Channel 12 whether he could specifically confirm the reported call with bin Zayed, Bennett did not answer directly, but maintained that Netanyahu had received warnings from both Israeli and foreign officials.

Eldar and Yuval say their Haaretz investigation drew on dozens of sources, including senior officials, recordings, internal documents and correspondence, and that they cross-checked the account. Perry’s earlier reporting describes a separate Egyptian warning, while Bennett maintains that warnings came from both bin Zayed and Kamel. An Emirati source familiar with the reported call separately confirmed that bin Zayed warned Netanyahu. Netanyahu’s insistence that the conversation never occurred rests on both Haaretz’s documented account and the independent Emirati confirmation being wrong.

IMAGE: Naftali Bennett meets Mohammed bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi. Bennett says he knows “for a fact” that Netanyahu received warnings from the UAE and Egypt. (Source: Al Jazeera)

The investigation appeared less than two months before Israel’s national election, with Netanyahu’s conduct before October 7 already central to the campaign. His office denounced the report as a malicious fabrication with clear political timing. Opposition leaders cited it as further evidence that he had evaded responsibility for the failures preceding the attack.

Netanyahu has now sent a warning letter ahead of a proposed libel suit against Haaretz and journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval. In his statement, he again blamed Bar and Halevi, accusing them of recognising warning signs in the hours before the attack but failing to alert him. Haaretz responded: “We stand behind the publication.”

The warnings differed in detail and urgency, and none by itself explains the failure of October 7. Mounting concern reached the prime minister’s office through Israeli intelligence, Egypt, the UAE and the Shin Bet. Bar and Halevi say the warning attributed to bin Zayed never reached them.

That leaves the investigation with a narrower, more consequential question, not whether Israel received signs that Hamas was preparing something larger, but why the clearest reported warning stopped before it reached the officials responsible for assessing it and acting on it.

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