Israel’s Netanyahu accused of ignoring UAE warning — CBC World
Israeli journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval claim that 10 days before the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, United Arab Emirates President Mohammed bin Zayed called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and warned of possible large-scale actions by the group. As CBC World reports, these claims are set out in the book “Hostages: 843 Days of Abandonment,” an excerpt from which was published by the newspaper Haaretz.
According to Eldar, the UAE warning did not contain a specific date for the attack. It concerned the intentions of Yahya Sinwar, then Hamas’s leader in Gaza, to do “something very big.” The journalist said Netanyahu allegedly did not pass the information on to the heads of Israel’s security services, including the chief of the General Staff, the heads of Shin Bet and Mossad, as well as the defense minister.
Netanyahu’s denial
Netanyahu rejected the accusations, calling them a fabrication. In an interview with CBS News, he said that he had received no warnings and that the dissemination of such claims was political in nature and linked to attempts to prevent him from winning another term in the October 27 election.
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The UAE neither confirmed nor denied the information presented in the book. Following Haaretz’s publication, other media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic, reported allegedly similar warnings from Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel, conveyed in the final days before the attack.
Calls for an investigation
The new claims have intensified Israelis’ demands to establish a state commission to investigate security failures before the October 7 attack. During memorial ceremonies in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, protests were held demanding that Netanyahu be held accountable.
The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, was the deadliest in Israel’s history: about 1,200 people were killed, more than 800 of them civilians. Another 251 people were taken to Gaza by militants as hostages. According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, more than 74,000 people have been killed as a result of Israel’s subsequent war in the Gaza Strip.
