Benjamin Netanyahu says the call never happened. The United Arab Emirates has declined to settle the dispute publicly.
On September 8, 2026, Haaretz reported that UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan warned Netanyahu that Hamas was preparing a major operation shortly before the October 7, 2023 attack. CBS News said it had not independently confirmed the allegation and noted that Haaretz stood by its reporting.
According to The Jerusalem Post’s account of the investigation, the alleged call occurred ten days before the attack and lasted forty-five minutes. Haaretz’s sources reportedly said bin Zayed named Yahya Sinwar, then Hamas’s leader in Gaza, and warned that he was planning a major operation.
The report alleges that Netanyahu responded calmly, said Israel was prepared for any scenario and suggested that a more immediate threat was likely to emerge from the West Bank. It further alleges that he did not brief Israel’s security chiefs about the call. Those details remain allegations attributed to Haaretz’s sources, not independently established facts.
Netanyahu’s office has called the report false and said an examination by the Prime Minister’s Office, National Security Council and military secretariat found no record of a call or an Emirati visit during the relevant period. By September 9, his office had also said he instructed lawyers to file a defamation action against Haaretz and the journalists behind the report.
The UAE foreign ministry said it would not comment on speculation about conversations between government leaders. It said Israel and the UAE have maintained open communication and that relevant intelligence is exchanged when necessary, but its statement neither confirmed nor denied the alleged call.
That distinction matters. A refusal to deny a report is not the same as corroborating it, and the UAE statement should not be presented as confirmation that the conversation occurred.
The account nevertheless contains substantial specificity. The New Yorker reported that Haaretz journalist Shlomi Eldar said the investigation relied on three independent sources, a recording and documents. It also reported the allegation that bin Zayed later raised his concerns with William J. Burns, who was CIA director at the time.
Specificity can make an allegation more credible and politically potent, but it does not remove the need for independent verification. The public record still contains two incompatible accounts: Haaretz’s sourced reporting and Netanyahu’s categorical denial.
The timing gives the dispute unusual weight. The Haaretz story appeared exactly seven weeks before Israel’s October 27 election, the first national election since the October 7 attack.
The electoral importance of October 7 is supported by current polling. An Israel Democracy Institute survey conducted from August 31 to September 3 found that 68 percent of Jewish respondents and 32 percent of Arab respondents considered October 7 a central factor in deciding how to vote.
That survey does not show that this particular report will change votes. It does show why an allegation about what Netanyahu knew before the attack can dominate campaign discussion even when its central facts remain contested.
The political response was swift. Naftali Bennett publicly said he believed the report was true, while Gadi Eisenkot and other opposition figures accused Netanyahu of ignoring warnings and renewed demands for an independent inquiry.
Several opposition leaders also issued a joint statement asking what Netanyahu knew, when he knew it and why the alleged warning was not passed to the security establishment. The Guardian reported that opposition parties intend to establish a state commission of inquiry if they win the election.
The government-side response has followed two lines. Netanyahu’s office says the call did not occur, while supportive commentators have argued that Israel’s military and domestic intelligence leaders were themselves responsible for identifying and communicating threats from Hamas.
Those arguments address different questions. One concerns whether the reported conversation happened at all; the other concerns what responsibility a prime minister would have if such a warning reached him. Running both arguments may protect different parts of Netanyahu’s electorate, but it also keeps the disputed warning at the center of the campaign.
For voters who admire Netanyahu’s international experience but remain troubled by the security failure of October 7, the allegation creates an uncomfortable test. It asks them to weigh a strongly denied report against a broader record of warnings, investigations and arguments over responsibility.
Public-opinion analyst Dahlia Scheindlin cautioned that Netanyahu’s supporters were likely to interpret the report as another attempt by Haaretz to remove him. Her analysis also captured the political risk for the prime minister: even without an immediate shift in polling, Netanyahu has little to gain from an election dominated by October 7.
This is why the story functions as more than a dispute over one phone call. It is an agenda-setting event, bringing the campaign back to what Netanyahu knew before the attack and what he did with the information available to him.
The report also lands within a longer argument over pre-attack warnings. Bennett said Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel had also warned Netanyahu about an operation being planned by Hamas. Netanyahu has disputed claims that he received a specific warning of an imminent attack from Gaza.
Israel’s government has not established the independent state commission sought by opposition parties and many bereaved families. Netanyahu has also resisted accepting personal responsibility for the attack, while arguing that accountability should encompass the military, intelligence agencies and earlier policy decisions.
The Haaretz allegation gives the opposition a simpler campaign narrative than the institutional debate over commissions, mandates and appointments. It reduces the argument to one question that voters can readily understand: if the reported warning reached Netanyahu, why was it not passed to the officials responsible for Israel’s security?
That question remains conditional because the alleged call has not been independently proved. The UAE has not confirmed it, Netanyahu denies it and his planned legal action may extend the dispute rather than resolve it before polling day.
The report may not persuade committed Netanyahu supporters, and there is no evidence yet that it has changed turnout or voting intentions. Its immediate consequence is narrower but still important: it has forced the campaign back onto the political terrain Netanyahu’s coalition has the strongest incentive to escape.
An election conducted under that renewed scrutiny is different from one centered primarily on other questions. Whether the allegation ultimately changes the result will depend not only on what can be proved, but on how many voters decide that the unresolved question itself demands an answer.