Netanyahu says he’ll sue Haaretz over report UAE leader warned him days before Oct. 7

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday he would sue the Haaretz daily over its report that said he had been warned by the Emirati president about Hamas plans to attack Israel days before the October 7, 2023, onslaught and didn’t act on the information.

Netanyahu reasserted on X that there had been no call between him and Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed between early September 2023 and the October 7 invasion. He argued that any such call would have left clear documentation, which he said has not been found by the Prime Minister’s Office team.

“This is a sinister libel with clear political timing, as part of the left’s election campaign, and there will be more such false libels,” he said, claiming yet again that had he been alerted by Israel’s security chiefs about the signs of a potential Hamas attack hours before it started, “the terrible massacre could have been prevented.”

He said he has ordered his lawyers to sue the outlet and reporter Shlomi Eldar, who wrote the story.

In response, Haaretz said it stood by its reporting.

An Emirati source familiar with the conversation confirmed the Haaretz newspaper’s report to The Times of Israel later Tuesday.

Netanyahu’s election rival Naftali Bennett said after publication of the Haaretz report that it was “true.” The former prime minister did not offer any details on how he knew this, though he is known to be friendly with bin Zayed.

According to the report, bin Zayed (known as MBZ) warned Netanyahu in a 45-minute phone call in late September that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was planning major action against Israel that would lead to bloodshed, unsettle the region and potentially harm the Abraham Accords.

The report said MBZ was surprised by Netanyahu’s response, which was largely dismissive, with the Israeli premier telling him Jerusalem was on top of things in Gaza, that any Hamas action was likely to come in the West Bank, and that Israel was prepared for any scenario.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas-led terrorists launched a cross-border, multipronged assault, catching Israel by complete surprise. Terrorists brutally massacred 1,200 people in southern communities, mostly civilians, took 251 hostages to Gaza, and sparked years of conflict that has spread across the Middle East.

While Netanyahu labeled the report a “total lie,” opposition leaders charged that it was further proof Netanyahu was unfit to be prime minister.

In the aftermath of that report, new details emerged on Wednesday about previously reported Egyptian warnings issued around the same period.

According to Army Radio, the Shin Bet intelligence service presented Netanyahu with warnings it received from Egyptian counterparts about Hamas’s intentions to “make the ground in Gaza tremble.”

The Egyptians gave only that general warning, with no precise details, the report said.

Army Radio said then-Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar assessed that the warning meant — at least in part — that Hamas wanted to include the issue of then-kidnapped Israeli researcher Elizabeth Tsurkov in talks with Israel about a potential hostage deal.

Hamas and Iraqi Shiite militia Kataeb Hezbollah — the group that was holding Tsurkov — had come to an agreement shortly before the warning that Tsurkov would be considered a Hamas asset for talks with Israel on releasing a large number of terrorists in exchange for the handover of two Israeli captives and the bodies of two IDF soldiers held in Gaza.

Tsurkov was eventually released in September 2025.

In the days after the October 7 onslaught, an Egyptian intelligence official said that Jerusalem had ignored repeated warnings that the Gaza-based terror group was planning “something big” — which included an apparent direct notice from Cairo’s intelligence minister to the prime minister.

Last week, Netanyahu denounced Israel’s security chiefs for purportedly choosing not to wake him in the hours before the attack when, he said, “all the signs were there” that Hamas was about to invade, and claimed he would have immediately mobilized the IDF and taken other steps necessary to ensure that October 7 “would not have taken place.”

According to a Channel 12 report on Friday, Netanyahu took at least two hours to leave his Caesarea home and head to the IDF’s Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv after being told that Hamas-led terrorists were attacking Israel at 6:29 on the morning of October 7, 2023.

He did not contact the heads of the IDF and Shin Bet in that time, or en route to the Kirya, the TV report further said, though he was in contact with his military secretary.

According to his own published schedule, the prime minister only ordered the Gaza border closed and a full IDF mobilization at 9:55 a.m.