Netanyahu made a secret trip to Abu Dhabi to meet UAE leader bin Zayed

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travelled to the United Arab Emirates on Sunday without prior announcement and held a meeting with the country's president, Mohammed bin Zayed, according to several Israeli media outlets and Axios correspondent Barak Ravid. Ynet reported that Netanyahu flew to Abu Dhabi on a private plane and had already returned to Israel by the evening.

The trip took place against the backdrop of a recent Haaretz report that the Emirati leader had alerted Netanyahu, days before the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, that the group was preparing an assault. Haaretz, citing a source, described the visit as coming amid the fallout from that disclosure. Ravid wrote on X that the meeting came two weeks after the Haaretz revelation.

Who reported what

The first public word of the meeting came from Ravid, who attributed it to unnamed sources. Within minutes, Ynet's alerts channel, Israel Hayom, The Jerusalem Post and Haaretz carried the same basic account. The Jerusalem Post said a source had told it Netanyahu flew to the UAE to see bin Zayed. Israel Hayom, relaying a report by Israel's Channel 12, said two sources had confirmed the meeting and that the prime minister reached Abu Dhabi aboard a private jet.

Channel 12 is one of Israel's main commercial television news channels. Much of the detail about the trip's timing traces back to its reporting, as relayed by other outlets.

A disagreement over timing

The reports do not agree on how long Netanyahu was in the Emirates. According to Israel Hayom's account of the Channel 12 report, he left on Sunday morning and was in the UAE for the day. Ynet likewise said he took off in the morning.

A later update carried by The Times of Israel, also citing Channel 12, gave a narrower window: departure a little after midday, landing in Abu Dhabi at 3:10 p.m., and a stay of four hours. The sources available do not reconcile these accounts.

The warning before October 7

The context most outlets pointed to is the Haaretz exposé. According to Haaretz, bin Zayed told Netanyahu in the days before October 7, 2023 that Hamas, the Islamist group that rules Gaza, was planning an attack. That day's cross-border assault on southern Israel remains the defining trauma of recent Israeli history, and questions over what warnings reached the country's leadership beforehand are politically sensitive.

Ynet described the trip as following a storm over the Emirati warning and wrote that it can be assumed the subject came up between the two men. That is Ynet's assessment rather than a reported account of the conversation. Ynet also placed the visit in the context of growing closeness between Israel and the UAE, alongside the war with Iran.

Israel and the UAE

The United Arab Emirates is a federation of seven emirates on the Arabian Peninsula, with Abu Dhabi as its capital. Mohammed bin Zayed, widely known by his initials MBZ, is its president. Israeli leaders' contacts with Gulf Arab states have at times taken place away from public view, and this visit was not announced in advance by either government, according to the reports.

What the reports do not say

None of the reports cites an official statement from the Prime Minister's Office or from the Emirati government confirming the meeting. Every account rests on unnamed sources, either the outlets' own or those cited by Channel 12.

No outlet reported what the two leaders discussed, who else took part, or whether any agreement or announcement resulted. The link to the Haaretz report on the pre-October 7 warning is drawn by the outlets themselves; no participant is quoted confirming it was raised. The exact length of the stay remains unsettled between the competing accounts.