Netanyahu files a NIS 2.6 million defamation claim over reports of Egyptian and Emirati warnings

Likud announced on 29 September that Netanyahu has filed a defamation suit over reports that Egypt and the United Arab Emirates warned him of a coming Hamas attack before 7 October 2023. The claim is valued at NIS 2.6 million, roughly $850,000; Ynet describes it as directed at ten journalists and media outlets. The defendants named by Likud, as reported by the Times of Israel, are Haaretz, Yedioth Ahronoth, Channel 12, and the journalists Shlomi Eldar, Uri Misgav, Nadav Eyal, Barak Ravid and Attila Somfalvi. The filing calls the reports a “total invention meant to fatally harm the security of the country and the prime minister”; Likud’s accompanying statement calls them “a complete lie,” and Ynet’s translation of the claim renders the phrase as “a complete fabrication, a baseless fiction.”

The load-bearing observation belongs to Ynet, not to us: “Contrary to what is claimed in the lawsuit, neither Egypt nor the United Arab Emirates has so far issued an official denial of the reports that Netanyahu received such warnings.” Al-Monitor reported that during his secret UAE visit Netanyahu asked President Mohamed bin Zayed to deny the pre-7 October warnings; the Prime Minister’s Office denied that any such conversation took place, or that Netanyahu was warned by any foreign source. The Emirati foreign ministry said on 8 September that it does not comment on “speculation” about leaders' conversations, adding that Israel and the UAE “have maintained open and direct lines of communication since the inception of the relationship more than five years ago.” ToI reported on 28 September that Egypt warned Netanyahu days before the attack, after two previous warnings, and ran an analysis the same day arguing his narrative of ignorance is unravelling. A former Shin Bet chief, unnamed in the ToI headline, says he will sue Netanyahu in turn.

Assessment: A libel suit is a slow instrument fired four weeks before a vote, and its schedule matters more than its merits: it converts a contested factual record into sub judice territory for the duration of the campaign. Watch the gap Ynet identified. If Cairo or Abu Dhabi were willing to say publicly that no warning was passed, the suit would be unnecessary; their silence is the most informative element in the file, and the Al-Monitor account of what was asked in Abu Dhabi explains why. Note what is not yet established: the alleged request to bin Zayed rests on one outlet and is denied, and the former Shin Bet chief’s counter-suit is a headline without a name.