Netanyahu sues Haaretz over a phone call Abu Dhabi will neither confirm nor deny

On 8 September Haaretz published an investigation by Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval, drawn from their book rendered in English as “Hostages: 843 Days of Abandonment,” alleging that UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed telephoned Benjamin Netanyahu roughly ten days before 7 October 2023 to warn that Yahya Sinwar was preparing a major operation, and that Netanyahu passed it to neither the IDF nor the Shin Bet. Israel Hayom, which is editorially pro-Netanyahu, dated the call to end-September 2023 and described it as lasting 45 minutes. On 9 September Netanyahu sent a pre-litigation letter and announced a libel suit against “the leftist newspaper Haaretz, Shlomi Eldar, and additional parties,” attributing the story to Muhammad Dahlan and calling for a criminal probe. Haaretz refused to retract on 10 September, calling its work an “in-depth, well-sourced journalistic investigation into a matter of utmost public interest” and saying it “won’t hesitate to expose the truth in court.”

The PMO statement is worth reading twice. Citing the Prime Minister’s Office, the National Security Council and the Military Secretary, it says: “Contrary to what was claimed, no conversation whatsoever took place between the prime minister and the president of the UAE from the start of September until October 7.” That denies a call inside a fenced window. It does not deny that a warning reached Israel. Separately, an unnamed official described as having detailed knowledge of the Israel–UAE covert relationship told Yedioth Ahronoth that the intelligence came from a “very reliable” source, was treated with “great seriousness” by Emirati officials, reached Israel “a short time” before the attack and indicated something could happen “very soon” without a date. The same official declined to say whether Sinwar was named, how the warning travelled, or whether MBZ telephoned Netanyahu. Former defence minister Yoav Gallant said he knew of no such warning and that the prime minister could have concealed it — a formulation, not a confirmation.

Assessment: Two different propositions are being conflated by everyone with an interest in conflating them. One: a warning of some kind reached Israel before 7 October. That now has anonymous, single-source support in Yedioth and nothing has contradicted it. Two: MBZ personally called Netanyahu and Netanyahu buried it. That rests entirely on Haaretz and its authors' book, and no second outlet has matched it. The UAE foreign ministry’s line — it does not comment on leaders' conversations, while noting that direct channels have existed since normalisation — is a non-denial doing more work than either side’s statements. The test is procedural: a filed statement of claim drags the call into discovery. A warning letter that never becomes a suit tells you the opposite.