C14 correspondent Achikam Himpelfarb reported that the United Arab Emirates responded for the first time to a Haaretz report claiming that UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu one week before the Oct. 7 massacre, seeking to distance Abu Dhabi from the political storm that erupted in Israel. “You cannot fend off the wave of rumors in the Israeli media,” a senior Emirati official told C14, according to correspondent Achikam Hempler.
1+The official expressed frustration that the UAE’s name has repeatedly been tied to political events in Israel, forcing the Gulf state to issue denials. The message from Abu Dhabi was clear: the UAE does not want to be dragged into Israel’s internal political disputes. Sources close to Netanyahu also rejected the incident described in the report, saying it never occurred.
According to the sources, a diplomatic conversation at such a senior level does not happen spontaneously and requires a series of preparations and prior coordination. Even if such an event were subsequently removed from official records, they argued, traces of the preparations and coordination required for a conversation between national leaders should remain in the relevant systems. In other words, they said, a conversation of this kind could not simply have occurred without advance preparation.
1+Senior Israeli security officials also strongly rejected the report, describing it as “complete fake.” They said it was unclear where the story originated or how it ultimately came to be published. The Haaretz report was based on testimony from a ‘Palestinian’ from Gaza who emigrated to the UAE and claimed he was present during a conversation involving UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed.
Sources familiar with standard practices in the UAE also cast doubt on that part of the account. They said access to diplomatic discussions at the highest levels is extremely restricted, and individuals who do not belong to circles close to the royal family would generally not be present during such conversations. Accordingly, they said, the claim that a man who emigrated from Gaza was present during a sensitive conversation involving the Israeli prime minister raises significant questions about the account.