Jerusalem —
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the United Arab Emirates on Sunday and met with the country’s President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, both countries confirmed on Monday.
An Israeli official familiar with the visit told CNN on Sunday that the unannounced meeting was dominated by discussions about Iran, an area where the two countries have deepened cooperation, including during the Iran war.
UAE state news agency WAM confirmed that Sheikh Mohammed and Prime Minister Netanyahu met in the country on Sunday.
The two leaders “discussed the bilateral relations between the UAE and Israel and ways to strengthen and further develop them,” WAM reported.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said the meeting focused on “strengthening relations between the two countries and regional issues.”
The visit included Prime Minister Netanyahu’s wife, the head of the National Security Council, the Mossad chief, military chiefs and political advisers, the office said.
The unusual visit comes just a month before Israel’s Oct. 27 elections and comes against a backdrop of growing political controversy in Israel over reports in Haaretz and the New York Times alleging that Sheikh Mohammed warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about a major Hamas operation days before the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.
Separately, The Atlantic reported that Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel flew to Israel on September 26, 2023, warning that Gaza would be “blown up.” And on Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reported that at least three Egyptian warnings regarding Gaza had been relayed to Israel, the last in a phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu days before the attack.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly denied being warned and has dismissed the reports as fabricated lies aimed at damaging the election.
“I never met or spoke to the Egyptian intelligence chief until October 7th. No warning was given to me,” the prime minister posted on X on Monday. “Foreign and hostile states and actors, including Arab states, are behind the false and bloody defamation.”
But his rivals are using the allegations to lay blame for failing to stop the October 7, 2023, attack, a central issue of the campaign.
Following initial reports of Sheikh Mohammed’s warning, the UAE Foreign Ministry said earlier this month that it “does not comment on media reports or speculation regarding conversations between government leaders,” but did not deny the talks. “All relevant information has been and will continue to be communicated between the relevant parties as necessary,” the statement said.
At the time, Israeli sources familiar with the matter said Netanyahu’s office tried to get the UAE to deny the report, but the UAE only agreed to issue a statement on information sharing.
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud party then issued a statement, posted on the prime minister’s X account, alleging “blatant foreign interference” in Israel’s elections by UAE-based Palestinian politician Mohamed Dahlan. The parties provided no evidence for their claims.
Neither Israel nor the UAE mentioned the reported Oct. 7 warning in Monday’s statements about Netanyahu’s visit.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s rivals have seized on the reported warning to renew their attacks on his response to events leading up to October 7.
Gadi Eisenkot, who is currently polling as the prime minister’s main challenger in Israel’s next general election, said on Saturday that the revelations about the warning were “beyond any doubt: Prime Minister Netanyahu was blind, arrogant and irresponsible and led the state of Israel into the greatest disaster in its history.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced in May that he had made a secret visit to the UAE in March, early in the Iran war, and called it a “historic breakthrough.” However, the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied his claims at the time, calling them “totally baseless.”
During the war, Israel is also said to have deployed the Iron Dome missile defense system to the UAE, and Israeli officials said security cooperation between the two countries had reached an unprecedented level.
Sunday’s visit was Netanyahu’s first publicly acknowledged visit to the UAE.
CNN Eyad Kurdi contributed to this report.
