Report: UAE intel warned Shin Bet of Hamas action before Oct 7, prompting purported MBZ-Netanyahu call

The United Arab Emirates’ intelligence service warned the Shin Bet in September 2023 that Hamas could carry out a violent action by the end of the month — days before the October 7 massacre took place — Channel 12 reports, saying the intelligence warning was what prompted UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed’s purported phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the matter.

According to the network, which cites three senior Emirati sources with direct knowledge of the matter, the UAE warning was essentially identical to information the Shin Bet had received through a separate channel from then-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar warning of an impending “earthquake” over negotiations for the release of Palestinian security prisoners.

Channel 12 originally reported on Sinwar’s warning in 2024, but reports of the phone call between Bin Zayed and Netanyahu only emerged in recent weeks. Netanyahu has vehemently denied that any such conversation took place.

Bin Zayed called Netanyahu to ensure that the intelligence passed by the Emiratis to the Shin Bet had reached him, and was assured by the premier that the matter was “being handled,” the network reports.

Channel 12 also reports new details on why the Shin Bet misinterpreted Sinwar’s warning.

At the time it was received, Israeli intelligence was separately seeing indications that a senior Iranian official, which Channel 12 says it cannot name, had asked Hamas to take responsibility for negotiations to free Israeli-Russian researcher Elizabeth Tsurkov from the pro-Iranian Iraqi group holding her, which had reportedly agreed to the proposal.

Officials who participated in a Shin Bet-convened assessment at the time tell Channel 12 that Sinwar’s warning fit the emerging intelligence picture “like a glove,” and that nobody in the discussion proposed an alternative interpretation of any impending attack.

A senior security official tells Channel 12 that the alleged subsequent warning from bin Zayed could have altered that assessment.

“If a subsequent message did indeed reach the prime minister himself from MBZ, it could have been the final piece that would have sent us toward additional, deeper investigative steps,” the official says. “Something was needed to outweigh the reassuring indicators we had accumulated for ourselves. It is possible that this could have been that sign.”