Israel's Netanyahu to sue newspaper over claim UAE warned him of 7 October attack

ByKaty Watson Reporting fromJerusalem.

Key points

• "Netanyahu and his partners in the 7 October government are unfit to continue in office, " remarked Gadi Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett, Avigdor Lieberman and Yair Golan.
• According to book extracts published by Haaretz, UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan had a phone call with Netanyahu that September.
• On 7 October 2023, thousands of Hamas-led gunmen breached the Gaza border fence and attacked nearby Israeli communities, military bases and a sizeable music festival.
• The report remarked Netanyahu was cautioned that the then-Hamas chief in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, was planning a major operation.
• Netanyahu's office remarked "no warning was given to the prime minister from the United Arab Emirates before 7 October", calling the report part of a "sinister plot".

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has informed lawyers to commence defamation proceedings against an Israeli newspaper over reports that the leader of the United Arab Emirates cautioned him that Hamas was planning an operation just days before the 7 October 2023 attacks.

Notably, the report remarked Netanyahu was cautioned that the then-Hamas chief in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, was planning a major operation.

Haaretz, which has historically been a vocal critic of the prime minister, has stood by its reporting and rejected Netanyahu's defamation claim, saying its "sole purpose is to silence journalistic criticism".

For context, the report – and Netanyahu's angry denials, accusing Haaretz of lies – comes as the general election campaign in Israel starts to heat up. The polls on 27 October are widely considered a referendum on Netanyahu's leadership.

On 7 October 2023, thousands of Hamas-led gunmen breached the Gaza border fence and attacked nearby Israeli communities, military bases and a sizeable music festival. Regarding 1, 200 residents were killed and 251 others were taken back to Gaza as hostages.

Israel responded by launching a military campaign in Gaza, during which at least 73, 670 individuals have been killed, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the UN.

Ever since 7 October, accusations have been laid against Netanyahu that he did not act rapidly enough after the attack began. He has resisted an independent public inquiry into what happened and this latest report will only fuel critics' suspicions.

Meanwhile, the report, published on Tuesday, cited three "foreign senior sources" and a Palestinian adviser to Sheikh Mohammed as saying that, in the final days of September 2023, a representative from the UAE embassy went to the Israeli prime minister's office with a special phone to ensure the conversation would remain confidential.

During that call, Haaretz documented, Netanyahu was given an explicit warning by Sheikh Mohammed – that Sinwar had informed a former Palestinian official that Hamas was preparing a major operation that he described as an "earthquake".

"Bin Zayed expressed concern that the event in question would not only lead to bloodshed but also destabilise the entire region, " Haaretz remarked, adding that the information contained in its report was a result of extensive research of dozens of sources, documents and correspondence, all carried out for a book, Hostages: 843 Days of Abandonment, written by Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval.

"To his surprise however, the prime minister reacted with relative calm, " Haaretz documented. "Netanyahu said that, in his assessment, Hamas intended to operate in the West Bank area, and he reassured bin Zayed that Israel was prepared for any scenario."

For context, the report went on to recount that the Emirati leader relayed the conversation he had with Netanyahu to the then CIA director William J Burns. As well as the Israeli army's chief of staff regarding his conversation with the UAE president, it additionally stated Netanyahu failed to brief the heads of Israel's Shin Bet domestic security agency and Mossad intelligence agency.

For context, the report was published on the same day that the UK confirmed sanctions on illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. The decision angered the Israeli administration. It unveiled a number of countermeasures, including ordering the closure of the British consulate in occupied East Jerusalem.

But while that development created international headlines, it was the Haaretz story that led the news in a country getting ready for elections.

While the prime minister remarked on X that the story had "clear political timing, as part of the left's election campaign", netanyahu's Likud Party accused Haaretz of "blatant foreign interference in Israel's elections".

Lawyers for Haaretz responded to Netanyahu's intends to commence legal proceedings, saying they would not be deterred by what they described as the prime minister's attempts to silence journalistic criticism.

According to The lawyers' letter, the report was "the product of an in-depth journalistic investigations and is based on sources pertaining to an issue of paramount public importance".

"In the absence of a full accountability to the public on behalf of your client, the press fulfils its role and exposes step by step the information to the public, " it continued.

Since the attack by Hamas, it has worked towards de-escalation, regional stability and preventing violence, while the UAE has not addressed the conversation specifically, it did not deny it either, issuing a statement emphasising that.

"UAE and Israeli government entities have maintained open and direct lines of communication since the inception of the relationship more than five years ago, " the UAE's ministry of foreign affairs remarked in an official note after the publication of Haaretz's report. "When necessary, all relevant intelligence has been and continues to be communicated between the relevant entities."

Four of Israel's main opposition leaders issued a joint statement demanding an investigation into what happened.

"We will work with the co-ordination and responsibility required to prevent them from leading to another disaster."

In short, israel' s Netanyahu to sue newspaper over claim UAE warned him of 7 is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.