Netanyahu’s secret Abu Dhabi visit revives questions over pre-October 7 warnings

New Delhi: The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, secretly travelled to the United Arab Emirates on Sunday and met the Emirati president, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, according to people familiar with the visit. The reported meeting comes amid Israel’s ongoing war with Iran and closer security cooperation between Israel and the UAE.

CNN reported the visit, citing an Israeli source familiar with the trip, and said Iran dominated the discussions. The Associated Press separately reported that two people briefed on Netanyahu’s trip confirmed the meeting and said the talks also focused on reports that Sheikh Mohammed had warned Netanyahu about a possible Hamas attack before October 7, 2023.

The warning relates to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, when Hamas fighters and allied groups crossed from Gaza into southern Israel. About 1,200 people were killed and around 250 people were taken hostage, according to figures cited by the New York Times.

The latest controversy over the warning began earlier this month. Haaretz reported that Sheikh Mohammed had called Netanyahu in late September 2023 and warned him that Hamas was preparing a major operation. The New York Times later reported that two people, including one who said they had spoken directly with Sheikh Mohammed, confirmed that the Emirati leader had passed information about a possible Hamas attack to Netanyahu.

The reports also raised questions about whether the warning reached Israel’s security leadership. Five former senior Israeli officials told The New York Times that the warning was not passed to the country’s senior security officials. Netanyahu held a meeting with security chiefs on October 1, 2023, to discuss the situation in Gaza but did not mention the alleged conversation with Sheikh Mohammed.

Netanyahu office also said the he did not speak to Sheikh Mohammed during the period in question and called the Haaretz report an “absolute lie”. The UAE has also not confirmed the reported warning.

The issue has resurfaced nearly three years after the attack because Israel is preparing for its October 27 election. Netanyahu’s political rivals have cited the new reports while questioning the handling of information before October 7 and the wider intelligence failures that preceded the attack.

Other warnings have also been reported. The Atlantic said Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel travelled to Israel on September 26, 2023, and warned that Gaza could “blow up”. The Wall Street Journal later reported that Egyptian officials had conveyed at least three warnings about Gaza, including a phone call to Netanyahu days before the attack.

The reported UAE meeting also comes after an earlier dispute over Netanyahu’s visits to Abu Dhabi. In May, Netanyahu’s office said he had secretly visited the UAE in March during the early phase of the Iran war and described the visit as a “historic breakthrough”. The UAE foreign ministry rejected that claim at the time as “completely unfounded”.

Despite such public disagreements, Israel and the UAE have maintained security cooperation. Israeli officials have said cooperation between the two countries reached unprecedented levels during the Iran war, while Israel was also reported to have deployed an Iron Dome missile defence system to the UAE.

The latest visit is also taking place against the background of the two countries’ wider relationship. Israel and the UAE established diplomatic relations under the Abraham Accords in 2020, leading to closer economic, political and security ties, including intelligence cooperation.

The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, had earlier said that Tehran did not consider the UAE or other Gulf countries enemies, according to an earlier RNA Media report. He said Iran was not at war with Saudi Arabia and described the Gulf countries as “brothers” with which Iran had longstanding trade and social ties.

Pezeshkian said Iran’s dispute was with US military bases operating from the territories of regional countries rather than with those countries themselves. He also urged neighbouring states not to allow their territory to be used for attacks against Iran.