Israeli Source to Afaq News: Netanyahu Visited the UAE on Sunday

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a "secret" visit to the United Arab Emirates on Sunday and met with the President of the State, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, according to an Israeli source familiar with the visit who spoke to Afaq News. The source stated that the issue of Iran dominated the agenda, which is an area where the two countries have deepened their cooperation, including during the current war against Iran.

The Israeli Prime Minister's office did not confirm the visit, and Afaq News also reached out to the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a comment. This rare visit, if confirmed, comes a month before the Israeli elections scheduled for October 27, against the backdrop of rising political controversy in Israel regarding reports published by Haaretz and The New York Times, claiming that Mohammed bin Zayed warned Netanyahu of a major Hamas operation days before the October 7, 2023 attack.

Separately, The Atlantic reported that former Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel traveled to Israel on September 26, 2023, to warn that the situation in Gaza would "explode." The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that Egypt issued at least three warnings to Israel regarding Gaza, the last of which was through a phone call with Netanyahu just days before the attack.

Netanyahu's office has repeatedly denied receiving any warnings, describing these reports as "fabricated lies" aimed at harming him electorally. However, his opponents have exploited these claims to make accountability for the failure to prevent the October 7, 2023 attack a central issue in the election campaign.

Following the initial reports regarding Mohammed bin Zayed's warning, the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced earlier this month that it "does not comment on media reports or speculations regarding discussions between government leaders," but it did not deny that the call took place. The statement read: "When necessary, all relevant intelligence information has been, and continues to be, exchanged between the concerned parties."

At that time, an Israeli source familiar with the matter said that Netanyahu's office tried to urge the UAE to deny this report, but the United Arab Emirates only agreed to issue a statement regarding the exchange of intelligence information. The Likud party, led by Netanyahu, later issued a statement published on the Prime Minister's account on the platform "X", claiming that there was "blatant foreign interference" in the Israeli elections by Palestinian politician Mohammed Dahlan, who resides in the UAE, and the party did not provide any evidence to support this claim.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu's opponents seized on this warning to renew their attacks on his handling of the events leading up to October 7. Gadi Eisenkot, who currently leads in polls as the main competitor to the Prime Minister in the upcoming Israeli elections, said on Saturday that the revelation of this warning "leaves no room for doubt that Netanyahu led, with blindness, arrogance, and a lack of responsibility, the State of Israel to the greatest disaster in its history."

In May, Netanyahu's office announced that the Prime Minister secretly visited the United Arab Emirates in March, during the early days of the war with Iran, describing the visit as a "historic breakthrough"; however, the UAE's Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied this claim at the time, calling it "completely false." Netanyahu has never made an officially recognized public visit to the UAE.