Netanyahu Asked UAE Leader to Deny Hamas Warning Report in Secret Visit

Benjamin Netanyahu secretly flew to Abu Dhabi on Sunday to ask the UAE’s president to deny a report that he had warned the Israeli prime minister about a looming Hamas attack before October 7.

Sources described the request as the focus of Netanyahu’s meeting with Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, according to Israel’s Channel 12 TV station.

Netanyahu’s office had already rejected the account of an advance warning, published earlier this month by Haaretz.

Two people briefed on the trip said the leaders met for about an hour. Israel’s Channel 12 first disclosed the visit.

A Private Appeal

Channel 12 reported that Netanyahu flew on a private aircraft and spent roughly four hours in the UAE.

His delegation used several planes, while most of the discussion between the two leaders took place one-on-one.

The trip came just a month before the election and two days after Netanyahu returned from the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

The source describing Netanyahu’s request and a regional official briefed on the meeting spoke anonymously because the visit was secret.

There was no immediate response from Netanyahu’s office to the account of his appeal.

The Reported Warning

The Haaretz report, by Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval, described a 45-minute conversation in which Mohamed warned Netanyahu that Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza, was preparing a major operation against Israel.

According to that account, the Emirati president urged Netanyahu to act.

He feared that the operation would cause bloodshed, destabilize the wider region and damage the Abraham Accords.

The report portrayed Netanyahu’s response to the information as relatively calm.

Channel 12 said no Emirati official had formally denied that the warning conversation occurred, while other sources had corroborated it.

Netanyahu’s office disputed the Haaretz report.

UAE Withholds Comment

The UAE’s Foreign Ministry declined to address reports of Sunday’s meeting.

It said, however, that it maintains “open and direct lines of communication” with Israel and shares “all relevant intelligence.”

The statement did not address whether Mohamed had issued the reported warning or whether Netanyahu had asked him to deny it.

The visit also followed an earlier dispute over the disclosure of private diplomacy.

In May, Netanyahu’s office announced that he had secretly traveled to the UAE during Operation Roaring Lion.

Channel 12 reported that publicizing that earlier visit against Emirati wishes had strained relations with Abu Dhabi.