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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed his legal team to initiate defamation proceedings against the prominent domestic newspaper Haaretz. The move follows the publication of explosive claims alleging that the United Arab Emirates warned the Israeli leader of an impending, large-scale Hamas offensive only days before the devastating attacks of October 7, 2023.
The contentious report, based on excerpts from an upcoming investigative book published by Haaretz, states that UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan held a private telephone discussion with Netanyahu in late September 2023. According to the account, the Emirati leader delivered an explicit alert that Hamas’s leadership in the Gaza Strip was orchestrating a major military operation.
Netanyahu’s office swiftly and vehemently rejected the reporting, asserting that no warning of any kind had been delivered by the United Arab Emirates prior to the cross-border assault. Denouncing the report as an entirely fabricated narrative, official spokespeople characterized the publication as part of a calculated and sinister plot designed to damage the prime minister politically.
In response, Haaretz—a long-standing and vocal editorial critic of Netanyahu’s administration—firmly stood by the integrity of its reporting. The newspaper’s legal representatives dismissed the threat of defamation litigation, contending that the prime minister's legal offensive is intended solely to intimidate the press and suppress legitimate journalistic inquiry into governmental conduct.
The disputed claims stem from extensive research conducted for the book *Hostages: 843 Days of Abandonment*, authored by journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval. The authors based their findings on numerous confidential documents, correspondence, and interviews with dozens of individuals, including three senior foreign officials and a Palestinian adviser closely affiliated with Sheikh Mohammed.
According to the published details, the covert communication took place during the closing days of September 2023. To guarantee total discretion, a representative from the UAE embassy reportedly arrived at the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem carrying a specialized, secure telephone device dedicated specifically to facilitating the confidential exchange between the two leaders.
During the conversation, the UAE president allegedly informed Netanyahu that Yahya Sinwar, then the chief of Hamas in Gaza, had shared operational intentions with a former Palestinian official. Sinwar had reportedly characterized the forthcoming offensive as an "earthquake," prompting deep apprehension in Abu Dhabi that such an escalation would trigger mass casualties and fundamentally destabilize the broader Middle East.
Rather than sounding the alarm, Netanyahu is reported to have responded to the Emirati head of state with notable calm. The published account claims the Israeli prime minister dismissed the likelihood of a direct assault from Gaza, offering his own assessment that Hamas was primarily preparing to stage operations in the occupied West Bank and assuring Sheikh Mohammed that Israeli security services were fully prepared for any eventuality.
The investigative report further asserts that the UAE president subsequently relayed the substance of his discussion with Netanyahu to William J. Burns, who was then serving as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Crucially, the account alleges that Netanyahu chose not to share the intelligence with Israel's own top defense establishment, leaving the heads of the Shin Bet domestic security service, the Mossad intelligence agency, and the military's chief of staff uninformed about the conversation.
The resurfacing of questions regarding early intelligence warnings touches on the deeply painful events of October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led fighters breached the border perimeter separating Gaza and Israel. The ensuing cross-border raid on border communities, military installations, and an outdoor music festival resulted in the deaths of approximately 1,200 people and the abduction of 251 hostages into the Palestinian enclave.
In the aftermath of the assault, Israel embarked on a wide-ranging and destructive military offensive across the Gaza Strip. According to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry, whose mortality assessments are regarded as reliable by the United Nations, the subsequent campaign has resulted in the deaths of at least 73,670 people, devastating vast swathes of the coastal territory.
Ever since the initial breach, Netanyahu has confronted persistent accusations from political opponents and civil society alleging a profound failure of vigilance and sluggish initial decision-making. The prime minister has continuously resisted mounting calls to establish an independent, state-level public inquiry into the strategic lapses surrounding the attack, rendering any new allegations regarding advance notice exceptionally volatile.
The timing of the revelations has further heightened domestic tensions, arriving just as campaigning accelerates ahead of Israel's national election scheduled for October 27. The upcoming ballot is widely viewed as a definitive public referendum on Netanyahu's prolonged governance and his wartime leadership over the past year.
Netanyahu's ruling Likud party denounced the article as an act of blatant foreign interference intended to disrupt the democratic process, while the prime minister himself took to social media to frame the publication as a politically motivated attack coordinated with his left-wing opponents. Conversely, legal counsel for Haaretz argued that in the absence of institutional transparency and governmental accountability, it remains the essential obligation of a free press to uncover facts of paramount public importance.
The political fallout inside Israel was immediate, with four prominent opposition party leaders releasing a joint declaration demanding a thorough and transparent probe into the prime minister's actions. The opposition figures asserted that Netanyahu and his wartime administration have demonstrated that they are fundamentally unfit to lead the nation forward.
For its part, the United Arab Emirates avoided addressing the specific details of the alleged phone exchange, issuing a diplomatic statement reiterating its ongoing commitment to regional de-escalation, conflict prevention, and stability. The Emirati foreign ministry emphasized that direct communication channels with Israeli agencies have functioned continuously since formal ties were established more than five years ago, confirming that relevant intelligence is shared between the two states whenever necessary.
The unfolding controversy rapidly dominated the domestic news agenda in Israel, overshadowing other major geopolitical developments occurring on the same day. Even as the Israeli government announced retaliatory steps—including the ordered closure of the British consulate in occupied East Jerusalem—following new sanctions imposed by the United Kingdom on illegal West Bank settlements, the claims surrounding the pre-war warnings remained at the absolute center of national attention.
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