Netanyahu says he’ll sue Haaretz over report UAE leader warned him days before Oct. 7
PM again denies he had call with Emirati president, as Likud calls for criminal probe into reporters; separate report says Egypt shared intel with Netanyahu that said Hamas wanted to 'make the ground in Gaza tremble'
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday he would sue the Haaretz daily and called for a criminal probe 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.
Later Wednesday, Netanyahu shared a statement by his Likud party, which accused Haaretz and Democrats party leader Yair Golan of “blatant foreign interference in Israel’s elections,” and called for a criminal investigation against Golan and the journalists who wrote the story.
The statement did not cite any evidence for its claims, including allegations of Golan’s involvement in the article’s publication. It alleged that the report was politically motivated.
הליכוד:
הפרשייה האמיתית שהתגלתה ביומיים האחרונים היא התערבות זרה בוטה בבחירות בישראל.
התברר שמי שעומד מאחורי הידיעה השקרית של עיתון ״הארץ״ הוא הבכיר הפלסטיני מוחמד דחלאן שיושב באמירויות.
דחלאן הקים רשימה משותפת עם חמאס לבחירות ברשות הפלסטינית. הוא מעוניין להפיל את ממשלת…
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) September 9, 2026
The statement claimed that exiled senior Palestinian official Muhammad Dahlan, who supposedly was involved in the reported conversation between bin Zayed and Netanyahu, was “seeking to topple the right-wing government led by Netanyahu because he dreams of taking control of the Gaza Strip.”
“To do so, he needs a weak left-wing government of [Gadi] Eisenkot, Yair Golan, [Avigdor] Liberman and the Arab parties,” Likud claimed. “Such a government would withdraw from Gaza and hand it over to his control.”
Netanyahu’s party also raised the possibility, again without evidence, that Golan and former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar’s recent reported visit to the UAE could be connected to the Haaretz report.
“Likud demands the opening of a criminal investigation against Shlomi Eldar, Ruth Yuval, the newspaper Haaretz, Yair Golan, and the Democrats party,” said Netanyahu’s post, “due to suspicion of attempting to disrupt the elections with foreign entities.”
In response to the threats of lawsuit and the call for a criminal probe, 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 on 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. Channel 13 reported on Wednesday that Bennett had indeed told people in private conversations that bin Zayed had informed him of the call.
According to the report, bin Zayed 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 bin Zayed 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 some 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.
According to Kan news, bin Zayed brought up the warning he gave to Netanyahu in a conversation with several US and Israeli officials months after the outbreak of the war, including the then-director of the CIA, Bill Burns.
Kan said that during that meeting, bin Zayed recounted telling Netanyahu that there would be an explosion of violence from Gaza, though the sources quoted in the report said it was a general warning and did not refer to specific plans by Hamas or other groups to launch an attack on Israel.
Blinken denies quote attributed to him in report
Meanwhile, Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state at the time of the October 7 attack, denied a part of the Haaretz report that claimed he’d urged Qatar’s prime minister to wait on an offer by the terror group on the day of the attack to release the civilian hostages it had abducted.
Haaretz reported that by the evening of October 7, when the scope of the massacre was beginning to become clear, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani called Blinken and said, “There are hundreds of hostages in Gaza, and among them, in my estimation, dozens of civilians. They need to be released now. I offered the Israelis to mediate a quick deal for their release, but they are not interested.”
The article said Blinken responded, “Let’s wait,” and added, “I will speak with Netanyahu personally,” reasoning that Israel was still under attack and it was too early to talk of deals.
But Blinken flatly denied that report in a post on X, highlighting the first quote and writing, “For the record, this is false. Complete fiction.”
For the record, this is false. Complete fiction. https://t.co/dnQSLClKGt
— Antony Blinken (@ABlinken) September 9, 2026
It was unclear from his post if he was denying the entirety of quotes attributed to him in the report or just the one quote that he highlighted.
New details on Egypt’s warning of Hamas attack
In the aftermath of the Haaretz 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 at 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.