Egypt's spy chief phoned Netanyahu days before October 7, WSJ reports

Abbas Kamel, then head of Egypt's intelligence service, telephoned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a few days before the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, to caution him that the group might be about to strike, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The Times of Israel reported that the Journal's account, published on Saturday, rests on unnamed officials in an Arab government it did not identify, and that it backs up an article The Atlantic ran the previous day.

According to that account, the call was the third Egyptian warning. Kamel had earlier travelled to Israel in late September and met Israeli officials in person, telling them Gaza was in a dangerous state that could erupt. Israeli officials brushed the concerns aside and assured him things were under control, the Journal reported, and that response is what led to the later call to Netanyahu's office. Ynet said the Journal's story confirms earlier reporting by its own correspondent Smadar Peri, and that Israel also received a warning from the United Arab Emirates.

Who Abbas Kamel is

Kamel led Egypt's General Intelligence Directorate, the country's main spy agency, and was a regular interlocutor for Israeli leaders. Government press office photographs published alongside the reports show Netanyahu hosting him in 2021, including at the prime minister's official residence in Jerusalem. Egypt borders the Gaza Strip, which Hamas ran as its de facto government at the time of the attack, and Egyptian intelligence has long kept channels open to both Israel and the group.

How the claim fits into the October 7 debate

The October 7 assault killed roughly 1,200 people. Since then, Israelis have argued over whether signals that might have prevented it were missed or ignored. Israel Hayom wrote that the new disclosure lengthens a list of cautions that reached Netanyahu and went unheeded, and that it has sharpened argument over his record as Israeli elections draw closer.

The Jerusalem Post framed the story as Netanyahu having received three warnings from Egypt about Gaza. Ynet counted the Egyptian messages together with a separate one from the Emirates.

The prime minister's response

The reports do not agree on how Netanyahu's office reacted. Ynet stated that the Prime Minister's Office had not responded. Israel Hayom's headline said the office denied the claim, though the portion of its report available here does not give the wording of any denial.

A former Mossad official's account

Eyal Tsir Cohen, who formerly headed Tevel, the division of the Mossad (Israel's foreign intelligence agency) that manages relations with foreign services, disputed the reports. In remarks carried by News.co.il, he said he did not remember information about warnings from MBZ, the initials by which the Emirati leader Mohammed bin Zayed is widely known, or from Sufian Abu Zaida, and did not remember a visit by Kamel either. He said that since October 7 he had spent many hours in meetings with Kamel and his staff and could not recall the subject coming up even in informal conversation. "They did not tell us that they had warned," he said.

The Jerusalem Post described him as a former Mossad diplomacy official who said he had been unaware of Egyptian and Emirati warnings to Netanyahu before the attack.

What the reports do not say

• The Wall Street Journal's sources are unnamed officials from an unidentified Arab government. None of the reports cites Egyptian officials speaking on the record, or Kamel himself.
• The reports do not give the date of the call, its content beyond the general warning, or who in Netanyahu's office took it.
• They do not name the Israeli officials Kamel is said to have met in late September.
• It is unclear whether the Prime Minister's Office issued a denial or declined to comment, since the reports differ.
• Tsir Cohen says he does not recall the warnings; he does not say whether he would have been told of a direct call to the prime minister.
• The details of the Emirati warning and of Sufian Abu Zaida's reported role are not set out in the material available.