Netanyahu Denies Secret Call With UAE President Before Oct. 7

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered a defamation lawsuit against the newspaper Haaretz and journalist Shlomi Eldar following a report alleging a secret phone call with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed before the October 7th Hamas attack. The Haaretz report claimed bin Zayed warned Netanyahu about an impending Hamas assault, a warning Netanyahu allegedly did not relay to security agencies. Netanyahu's office vehemently denied the report, calling it a "false slander" and stating that no such conversation occurred in September. The Prime Minister's office asserted that a thorough review of his call logs and office entry records found no evidence of the alleged conversation or the UAE envoy's presence.

Despite the Prime Minister's office's claims, Ronen Bergman, a Yedioth Ahronoth intelligence analyst, reported that the UAE envoy did deliver a secure phone to Netanyahu and that the device was destroyed after the call. Netanyahu's office also refuted claims that Egypt had warned the Prime Minister of an attack, a claim they stated was debunked early in the war. The Prime Minister's office characterized the report as a "malicious slander" timed for political purposes, part of the "left's election campaign."

Furthermore, the statement suggested the report aimed to distract from what the public is realizing: that former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and former IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi saw indicators of the attack hours before it began. The statement reiterated Netanyahu's recent claims that Israeli security officials refrained from waking him on the morning of October 7th, fearing "miscalculation" that might lead him to order an attack on Hamas. The Prime Minister's office argued that if Bar and Halevi had instead ordered a preemptive strike and informed Netanyahu, the "terrible massacre" could have been prevented.