A potentially explosive new report is reopening one of the most consequential questions surrounding the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel: what did Israel’s political leadership know before the assault — and what did it do with that information?
According to an extensive investigation reported by Haaretz, UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, widely known as MBZ, personally contacted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approximately a week and a half before October 7 and warned him that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was preparing a major operation against Israel.
The account forms part of research conducted by journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval for their new Hebrew-language book, Hostages: 843 Days of Abandonment.
The investigation reportedly draws on dozens of sources in Israel and abroad, including senior officials, as well as recordings, internal documents and correspondence.
Three senior foreign sources familiar with the conversation are cited as confirming that it took place.
The 45-Minute Call From Abu Dhabi
According to the report, the crucial conversation occurred in late September 2023.
MBZ reportedly called Netanyahu from the presidential palace in Abu Dhabi, with the conversation lasting approximately 45 minutes.
The message attributed to the Emirati leader was striking.
MBZ allegedly warned Netanyahu that Sinwar was preparing a major operation against Israel and expressed concern that such an attack could trigger significant bloodshed, destabilize the wider Middle East and jeopardize the Abraham Accords.
A close adviser to the UAE president — a Palestinian who had left Gaza for Abu Dhabi years earlier and reportedly retained strong connections inside the Strip — was also said to have participated in the conversation.
According to the adviser’s account, MBZ stressed that Israel needed to prepare for the threat.
At the same time, the Emirati leader reportedly urged Netanyahu to pursue measures that could ease economic pressure in Gaza and reduce tensions in the West Bank in an attempt to prevent a broader escalation.
Netanyahu Reportedly Looked Toward the West Bank
One of the most consequential elements of the account concerns Netanyahu’s alleged response.
According to the investigation, the Israeli prime minister appeared relatively calm and believed that any Hamas operation was more likely to focus on the West Bank.
Netanyahu reportedly assured MBZ that Israel was prepared for any eventuality.
Roughly 10 days later, the threat materialized somewhere else entirely.
Hamas launched its massive assault from Gaza, breaching Israel’s border defenses, attacking communities and the Nova music festival and taking hostages into the Strip.
The Most Explosive Claim: Israel’s Security Chiefs Were Not Told
The investigation goes significantly further.
It claims that the warning allegedly delivered directly to Netanyahu was not passed on to the leadership of Israel’s security establishment.
According to the account, the head of the Shin Bet domestic security service, the head of Mossad and the IDF chief of staff were unaware of MBZ’s reported warning.
That distinction is critical.
If independently substantiated, the issue would no longer be merely whether Israeli intelligence misinterpreted fragments of information before October 7.
It would raise a different question: why would a direct warning from the president of one of Israel’s most important Arab partners about a major Hamas operation not have reached the country’s senior security officials?
MBZ Reportedly Raised the Warning With the CIA
The account acquires another dimension because MBZ reportedly later discussed the matter with then-CIA Director William Burns.
According to the investigation, the UAE president conveyed to Burns his sense that something in the region was ready to “explode,” while explaining that Netanyahu believed the main area of concern was the West Bank.
This element matters because it potentially provides another point of reference for the claim that MBZ had raised his concerns before the October 7 attack.
The Emirati president reportedly hoped that despite Netanyahu’s restrained reaction, the Israeli leader would take the warning seriously and act on it.
Warning Signs Had Been Building for Months
The alleged telephone call is not presented as an isolated episode.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog is cited as recalling that MBZ had repeatedly expressed concern about deteriorating regional conditions in the months before the war.
The UAE leader reportedly sent repeated messages urging de-escalation and even dispatched a special envoy to Israel who met Netanyahu.
The broader regional environment was already volatile.
Violence was escalating in the West Bank, demonstrations were taking place along the Gaza border and Israel itself was deeply divided by the domestic confrontation over the government’s judicial overhaul.
From Abu Dhabi’s perspective, according to the account, the ingredients for a wider explosion were already visible.
Netanyahu’s Office: “An Absolute Lie”
There is, however, a crucial counterpoint.
Netanyahu’s office has categorically denied the report.
It described the allegation as an “absolute lie” and rejected the claim that Netanyahu held the reported conversation with MBZ during the relevant period or received the warning described in the investigation.
That denial is essential to understanding the status of the story.
At present, this is a major investigative claim attributed to Haaretz and research for the Eldar-Yuval book, reportedly supported by multiple sources — but it is directly and completely disputed by Netanyahu’s office.
The allegation therefore should not be presented as an independently established fact.
October 7 Returns as a Political Time Bomb
The significance of the report goes well beyond another reconstruction of the days before the Hamas attack.
For years, the debate surrounding October 7 has centered heavily on failures within Israel’s intelligence and defense establishment: intelligence that was misinterpreted, assumptions about Hamas that proved disastrously wrong and the military’s failure to recognize the scale and immediacy of the threat.
This new investigation potentially shifts part of that debate directly toward the prime minister’s office.
Its central claim is not merely that warning signs existed.
It alleges that the leader of the United Arab Emirates personally warned Netanyahu that Sinwar was preparing something major — and that Israel’s top security officials were subsequently not informed of that warning.
That is why the political stakes are so high.
If further evidence independently corroborates the account, the debate over October 7 could move beyond the question of a systemic intelligence and military failure.
It would also confront Israel with an even more politically explosive question:
Did a critical warning reach the very top of the government before October 7 — and, if so, what happened to it?
Source: pagenews.gr