Netanyahu announces libel suit against Haaretz over warning report

Update, 9 September, 11:08 Israel time

Netanyahu has announced legal action over the Haaretz investigation. The Times of Israel reported that the prime minister said he had instructed his lawyers to sue the newspaper and the journalist Shlomi Eldar, writing on X that no call took place between him and Mohammed bin Zayed from early September 2023 until the attack, and describing the publication as a sinister libel timed to the election campaign.

The statement circulated by the commentator Amit Segal sets out the basis of the denial. Segal published the text, in which the Prime Minister's Office says the bureau, the National Security Council and the military secretariat checked the prime minister's call log for those days and found no trace of such a conversation. Ynet reported Netanyahu as saying there is no record of a call in his diary and no entry log for an Emirati representative, that his conversations with bin Zayed are held on an encrypted phone and are documented, and that he received no warning from Egypt either.

Segal also reported that the warning letter sent ahead of the suit demands that Haaretz delete the article, publish an apology and pay compensation of a million shekels. News.co.il carried the same demands.

Haaretz confirmed it had been told of the planned libel suit. The paper has not said whether it will withdraw the report.

Update, 9 September, 09:08 Israel time

A senior Middle Eastern intelligence figure has become the first outside party to say a warning was in fact passed. Ynet reported that the official confirmed to it that, before the massacre, the Emirates transmitted to Israel an alert from what he called a very reliable source, indicating that Hamas was preparing a significant and imminent operation, and that Abu Dhabi treated the material with great seriousness. The same official declined to say how the message reached Israel, or whether Mohammed bin Zayed raised it directly with Netanyahu.

Ynet also described how the leader-level channel was said to have been run: contacts between the two men were handled discreetly, and the report states that the handset used was destroyed after each conversation. The Prime Minister's Office repeated to the outlet that Netanyahu received no warning of any kind.

Washington's knowledge of the matter has also been raised. The Jerusalem Post reported that people familiar with the period said the Biden administration was not aware of any Emirati warning to Israel before the attack. That does not address whether such a message passed between the two leaders, only what American officials say reached them.

The accounts remain in tension: an intelligence official describing a warning delivered, an Israeli denial that any arrived, and no named Emirati source speaking to the alleged call.

Update, 9 September, 00:08 Israel time

Israeli coverage has widened from the alleged phone call to the wider record of warnings said to have reached the prime minister before October 7. Ynet published a survey placing the Haaretz account of the call with the Emirati president alongside what it describes as a series of red flags raised in the preceding years, listing the Jericho Wall material, invasion scenarios that were set aside, written warnings sent by military intelligence, and alerts said to have come from Egypt as well as the United Arab Emirates. Ynet writes that, according to testimony it cites, the common thread was Netanyahu's manner in these discussions, which one description quoted by the outlet renders as appearing bored and indifferent. The outlet does not name the sources of that testimony.

The commentator Amit Segal, who earlier relayed the Prime Minister's Office denial in the same terms it gave Israeli media, has since framed the affair differently. Writing on Telegram, Segal said the problem before October 7 was not a shortage of information but a failure to understand Hamas, an argument that shifts the question away from whether any single warning was passed on.

Neither item produces documentation of the alleged call, and no Emirati official has spoken to it since Abu Dhabi's foreign ministry statement.

Update, 8 September, 23:08 Israel time

The Prime Minister's Office has now put its denial out in English as well as Hebrew. Ynet's alerts channel reported that Netanyahu's bureau issued an English-language statement saying he was not warned by the Emirates ahead of October 7, repeating in a second language the rejection it had already given Israeli media. The wording addresses the warning itself rather than the Emirati foreign ministry statement about intelligence channels.

Haaretz has also added detail on the conversation at the centre of its investigation. In a piece by Linda Dayan, the paper described a 45-minute call from the Emirati president in which Netanyahu was told to take Sinwar's talk of an "earthquake" seriously. That account places the call days before the attack, while Shlomi Eldar, one of the authors, said on Israeli army radio that it took place 10 days beforehand; the two descriptions have not been reconciled.

The Jerusalem Post reported Naftali Bennett's assertion that Netanyahu was warned by the UAE of the Sinwar threat under the heading of confirmation, although Bennett has still not said on what basis he makes the claim. No Emirati official has addressed the alleged call.

Update, 8 September, 21:08 Israel time

The United Arab Emirates has now responded, and it did not deny the account. In a statement from its foreign ministry, quoted by Israeli outlets including Ynet, Abu Dhabi said it does not comment on media reports or speculation about conversations between heads of government, adding that when needed, all relevant intelligence was passed and continues to be passed through the appropriate bodies.

The statement said Emirati and Israeli government bodies have maintained open and direct channels since relations were established, and that since October 7 the UAE's involvement has been directed at de-escalation, regional stability and preventing violence. Haaretz reported that the UAE confirmed intelligence sharing with Israeli authorities while declining to address the claim about the call with Netanyahu.

Ynet reported that the Israeli government had pressed the Emiratis to issue a denial of the claim that Mohammed bin Zayed alerted Netanyahu to a planned Sinwar operation, and that Abu Dhabi decided not to respond to the substance. N12's Tomer Almagor described the statement as a first Emirati reaction that stops short of a denial.

The Jerusalem Post wrote that Abu Dhabi said it would not join Israel's political debate, setting the Emirati silence against the Prime Minister's Office denial. No Emirati official has confirmed that the conversation took place, and the wording released does not refer to any specific call.

The story as first reported

An investigation published in the Israeli daily Haaretz claims that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was given a direct warning from the United Arab Emirates about an attack being planned by Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar shortly before the October 7 assault, and that he did not pass the warning on to the heads of Israel's security establishment. The report, by journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval and prepared for a forthcoming book, was summarised on the paper's front page as a warning received a week and a half before the attack that was not relayed to the security chiefs.

Netanyahu's office rejected the account outright. As Ynet reported, the Prime Minister's Office called the publication a complete lie, and the denial went further than the substance of the warning: Netanyahu is said to deny both that any such alert reached him and that a conversation of the kind described took place in that period. The Israeli commentator Amit Segal, writing on Telegram, described the denial in the same terms, saying Netanyahu maintains no warning was transmitted to him and no call occurred at the time in question.

What the report says happened

According to the account as relayed by Israeli outlets, the warning came from UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed, known widely as MBZ, in a conversation with Netanyahu. Eldar, speaking on Israeli army radio after publication, said the call took place 10 days before October 7. Barak Ravid of Axios, citing that interview, noted that a simple calculation places the date at September 27, and that the prime minister's official diary shows a long redaction at 14:45 marked with the Hebrew initials for information security, meaning the entry cannot be detailed publicly.

Ynet's summary of the investigation says the warning concerned Sinwar planning what was described as an earthquake, and it quotes Netanyahu's assessment in the conversation that if there were to be a problem, it would be in the West Bank rather than Gaza. Ynet also refers to a separate advance warning received by Ronen Bar; the material available does not elaborate on that point.

Why the UAE angle matters

The United Arab Emirates normalised relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords and has maintained channels with both Israeli leaders and regional actors. Mohammed bin Zayed is the country's president and the ruler of Abu Dhabi. A warning conveyed leader to leader, rather than through intelligence services, would sit outside the normal channels through which threat assessments reach Israel's military intelligence and the Shin Bet internal security service, which is part of why the claim that it was not shared with security chiefs is the sharpest element of the report.

The political reaction

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who leads the B'Yachad party and who Israeli media report met recently with the Emirati president, said the account is accurate. The Times of Israel reported that Bennett wrote on X that the report is true and that Netanyahu bears personal and direct responsibility, calling the disregard for the warnings criminal negligence. Bennett did not explain how he knows the account to be true.

Gadi Eisenkot, a former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff who now leads the Yashar party, wrote that Netanyahu received dozens of warnings and ignored them all, and said a state commission of inquiry would be established once the next government is formed. Yair Golan, leader of The Democrats, said Netanyahu is unfit and illegitimate and that his place is in prison. The October Council, a group representing bereaved families and survivors, asked how many times Israel had been warned before the massacre, according to Ynet.

A state commission of inquiry is the most powerful investigative body in Israeli law, appointed by the Supreme Court president. Netanyahu has resisted establishing one into the October 7 failures. Israel Hayom reported that opposition leaders renewed that demand 50 days before elections, placing the story squarely inside an active campaign. The Jerusalem Post also carried the Haaretz claim.

What the reports do not say

The material does not include any Emirati confirmation or comment. It does not reproduce the text of the alleged warning, name who else was present or informed, or say what evidence the authors rely on beyond their own reporting for the book. Bennett's basis for asserting the report is true is not given. The redacted diary entry cited by Ravid is not identified in the available material as relating to the call, and the disagreement between the Haaretz account and Netanyahu's denial is unresolved.