Netanyahu faces backlash over report he was warned of Hamas attack days before October 7

By Tal Shalev, CNN

(CNN) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced a fierce political backlash Tuesday over a report that the president of the UAE had warned him of a major Hamas operation days before the October 7, 2023 attack.

The Prime Minister’s Office dismissed the report as an “absolute lie.” But with Israel’s October elections less than two months away, Netanyahu’s rivals seized on it as the latest evidence of what they say is a growing list of warnings he had ignored.

The four opposition party leaders – Gadi Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett, Avigdor Lieberman and Yair Golan – issued a rare joint statement calling for “an immediate and thorough investigation” into Netanyahu’s “failures and malfunctioning.”

“The Israeli public is entitled to know: What did Netanyahu know, when did he know, why he didn’t update the security establishment, and why he didn’t act to protect Israeli civilians?” the statement said.

Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said the report is “true,” writing on X that Netanyahu’s alleged disregard for the warnings amounts to “criminal negligence.” Bennett’s political ally, former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, said he too had publicly warned of an attack before it happened, as had top Israeli security officials as well as Egyptian officials. “If Netanyahu had fulfilled his role, the massacre would have been prevented,” Lapid said in a statement.

The report, published in the Haaretz newspaper, was based on findings from an upcoming book by Israeli journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruti Yuval. It said UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed called Netanyahu about ten days before October 7, and during a 45-minute call, warned him that Hamas’ Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar was planning a major move against Israel that could cause bloodshed and destabilize the region. The report cited a message Sinwar conveyed to the UAE and Israel through a Palestinian mediator in mid-September 2023, warning of an upcoming “earthquake.”

Haaretz reported that Netanyahu reacted “relatively calmly” to the information, and assured Bin Zayed that Israel was prepared for any scenario.

CNN has reached out to the UAE Foreign Ministry for comment.

The Prime Minister’s Office strongly denied the report, stating Netanyahu “did not speak with the president of the United Arab Emirates during the period in question and did not receive any warning from him.”

Accountability as an electoral issue

The report comes as Netanyahu’s rivals work to make accountability for October 7 – the deadliest attack in Israel’s history, during which over 1,200 people were murdered and more than 250 abducted to Gaza – a central campaign issue.

Netanyahu has now outlasted nearly every member of Israel’s top security leadership from that day. Since the attack, the defense minister, the military chief of staff, and the directors of military intelligence, the Mossad and the Shin Bet, have all either resigned, been ousted, or reached the end of their terms.

Gadi Eisenkot, currently polling as Netanyahu’s leading challenger, said the Haaretz report shows Netanyahu “led Israel blindly” toward the October 7 failures and renewed his pledge to establish a state commission of inquiry if elected.

Nearly three years after the attack, Netanyahu has resisted demands from bereaved families and October 7 survivors to establish an independent commission to investigate the security and intelligence failures that enabled Hamas to conduct the operation.

He and his associates have instead promoted a narrative blaming security chiefs for not waking him up the night before the attack despite intelligence indications that a Hamas offensive was imminent.

Last month, his wife, Sara Netanyahu, suggested that Yair Golan – a retired major general and the leader of the left-wing Democrats party who independently rushed to the Gaza border on October 7 to rescue survivors – had advance knowledge of the attack.

In an interview with the pro-government Channel 14, she questioned how Golan was “already dressed and ready” at dawn that day to head south, “while others knew nothing, including the prime minister.”

Golan demanded an apology for what he called a “vile conspiracy theory” and said he would pursue a defamation suit, calling the allegation part of Netanyahu’s attempt to “rewrite” the events of October 7 and deflect responsibility.

Following the Haaretz report, Golan wrote on X that the prime minister’s“they-didn’t-wake-me-up narrative is over. He knew, he was warned.” He called it “not an error in judgment, but a conscious and criminal abandonment.”

Hours later, the Democrats party sharpened its electoral campaign against Netanyahu, erecting a giant billboard over Tel Aviv’s main highway bearing the headline: “The 1,200 murdered file – Causing death by negligence.”

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