Haaretz says the UAE president warned Netanyahu ten days before October 7; the premier calls it a total lie

Haaretz published the investigation on Tuesday morning, 8 September, as an excerpt from a forthcoming book by the journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval. Its account: UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed called Netanyahu roughly ten days before 7 October 2023 and spent 45 minutes urging him to take seriously a threat conveyed by Hamas Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, who had passed word through a Palestinian mediator in mid-September of a coming “earthquake.” The Times of Israel renders Sinwar’s line as “Tell them to expect a zilzal, an earthquake.” Haaretz reports Netanyahu “never passed on that message to the security establishment,” and did not inform the Shin Bet; CNN reports he reacted “relatively calmly.” Ynet adds that the book describes a separate Egyptian warning in the same period, and that Netanyahu later declined to authorise a renewed proposal to target senior Hamas figures including Sinwar.

The sourcing matters more than the summary. Both Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post attribute the account of the call to three senior foreign sources familiar with its contents. No Israeli official is on the record; no document has been produced. The Prime Minister’s Office denied the substance in English — “No warning was given to the Prime Minister from the United Arab Emirates before October 7th” — and, per CNN, denied the call itself, saying Netanyahu “did not speak with the president of the United Arab Emirates during the period in question.” Netanyahu called the report a “total lie.” The Times of Israel liveblog then carried its own line that an Emirati source confirmed the warning to it: a second anonymous single source, not independent verification. Outlets also disagree on the book’s title, given as “Hostages: 843 Days of Abandonment” and as “Kidnapped: 843 Days of Abandonment.”

The political response was unusually consolidated. Gadi Eisenkot, the Yashar leader and former IDF chief of staff, said Netanyahu had led Israel “blindly to disaster” and was unfit to serve. Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett, Avigdor Lieberman and Yair Golan issued what CNN describes as a rare joint statement demanding “an immediate and thorough investigation” into Netanyahu’s “failures and malfunctioning,” asking: “What did Netanyahu know, when did he know, why he didn’t update the security establishment, and why he didn’t act to protect Israeli civilians?” Haaretz’s Jonathan Lis reports other opposition figures calling the revelations “criminal.” Israel Hayom, which sits on the government side of the Israeli press, framed the day differently: the report had “ignited a full-blown firestorm in Israel’s opposition” — the story as an opposition event rather than a documentary one.

Assessment: Two separable questions are being merged. Whether a call took place is checkable — phone logs, diplomatic records, the Emiratis themselves — and the PMO has staked itself to the strongest possible answer, that no conversation occurred at all. Whether Netanyahu withheld a warning from the Shin Bet is a matter of testimony, and testimony currently held by three unnamed foreigners and a book not yet published. Readers should hold the first as falsifiable and the second as unproven. Note also what the denial does not address: the alleged Egyptian warning, and the refused authorisation on Sinwar. Denials that answer the loudest claim while skipping the adjacent ones are worth watching.