Ex-defense minister Gallant says he didn’t know of alleged MBZ-Netanyahu warning, says PM could’ve hidden it

Former defense minister Yoav Gallant says he was unaware of the alleged warning from UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack, reported this week by Haaretz.

But Gallant, who led Israel’s defense establishment during the attack, said the premier could have kept such a conversation off the published records of his calls. The Haaretz report said Netanyahu received a warning of an attack days before October 7 but did not alert security brass of the attack.

“I don’t know whether there was such a conversation or not,” Gallant, whom Netanyahu fired the following year, says in an interview with Channel 12.

“I know one thing: When a prime minister does not want something to be published, it isn’t published. When they don’t want people to know, people don’t know,” he tells the Hebrew network, citing his experience as both a prime minister’s military secretary and defense minister.

Netanyahu has categorically denied that the conversation took place, saying that his records indicate that he did not speak to the Emirati leader at the time.

Gallant adds that while serving under Netanyahu, he learned on “more than 10” occasions of conversations between the premier and senior US officials that he had not previously known had taken place.

“Every so often [American officials] would call me and say, ‘Your prime minister told us an hour ago, or two hours ago, such and such.’ And I’m talking about senior levels, below the president. Whether it was true or not, of course I represented the Israeli position as best I could, but that’s how I would learn about those conversations,” he says.