The New York Times, citing five former Israeli security officials, reported that Benjamin Netanyahu did not disclose an alleged UAE warning of a major Hamas attack at a Gaza security meeting on Oct. 1, 2023, six days before the Oct. 7 attack.
The NYT report said the officials also told the paper Netanyahu rejected security chiefs’ proposals to strike Hamas leaders in Gaza who were directing attacks in the West Bank. It said he urged calm because he believed a Saudi-Israeli agreement was near and feared Israeli operations in Gaza could derail it.
The report follows a Sept. 8 Haaretz investigation alleging UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed warned Netanyahu days before Oct. 7 that Hamas was planning a major operation; it cited three foreign sources. Netanyahu denied the claim and said he had directed lawyers to pursue a libel suit against Haaretz and reporter Shlomi Eldar. The Prime Minister’s Office said call logs and visitor records showed no Emirati representative entered during the period. The UAE rejected leader-level discussions of such details, and two US sources told The Jerusalem Post the Biden administration knew of no specific UAE warning.
