The Abu Dhabi Warning and Israel’s Decision-Making System: Open Questions over Information and Decision-Making

A report published by Haaretz has reopened debate in Israel over the information and warnings that preceded Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, after the newspaper reported that the United Arab Emirates had warned that Hamas was preparing to launch a major operation. According to the report, the warning was conveyed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approximately ten days before the attack.

According to the account published by the newspaper, UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan warned Netanyahu that Yahya Sinwar, then Hamas’s leader in the Gaza Strip, was preparing a large-scale operation that could result in significant bloodshed and destabilize the region. Netanyahu’s office, however, categorically denied receiving either the call or the warning and announced plans to take legal action against the newspaper and one of the journalists involved in the investigation.

The UAE government, for its part, neither confirmed nor denied that the call had taken place. It said only that it does not comment on reports concerning conversations between heads of state, while emphasizing that communication channels between UAE and Israeli institutions remain open and that relevant intelligence is exchanged when necessary.

The central allegation therefore remains disputed among the parties involved. At the same time, the competing accounts raise broader questions about what information was available before October 7, how it was interpreted, and how effectively it moved between the political and security levels.

The UAE Warning Narrative

The Haaretz investigation was based, according to its authors, on material collected over an extended period, including Israeli and foreign sources, documents, correspondence, and recordings. According to the investigation, the warning originated with a message conveyed by a Palestinian intermediary from Yahya Sinwar in September 2023, during contacts concerning a long-term truce and a prisoner-exchange agreement.

According to the account, Sinwar used language during one of these conversations indicating that he was preparing for an extraordinary operation and asked that his words be conveyed to the Israeli side. After the message was reportedly verified, the information reached a Palestinian adviser close to the UAE leadership before being passed on to Abu Dhabi.

Haaretz reported that the warning reached Israel’s Shin Bet security service on September 15 and that then-Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar briefed Netanyahu on it. A security meeting was subsequently held two days later with the participation of the defense minister and representatives of the security agencies.

According to the investigation, however, the initial assessment did not necessarily conclude that the information pointed to a major attack originating from Gaza. Some assessments reportedly suggested that the intended action could be limited or connected to another matter, while recommending that the warning be taken seriously and that defensive measures be strengthened.

The newspaper further reported that the absence of a decisive response prompted Mohamed bin Zayed to contact Netanyahu directly and that the call lasted approximately 45 minutes. It added that Netanyahu did not convey its contents to the heads of the security agencies and did not refer to it during a security meeting held on October 1 to discuss tensions along the Gaza border.

The Israeli Denial

Netanyahu’s office categorically rejected the account, stating that the prime minister had not spoken with Mohamed bin Zayed during the period in question and had not received a warning from him about an imminent attack.

The office said that, together with the National Security Council and the Military Secretariat, it had reviewed communications records and visitor logs covering the period from the beginning of September through October 7 and had found no evidence that the call had taken place or that an Emirati representative carrying an encrypted communications device had entered the prime minister’s office.

Netanyahu’s office also accused the investigation of having political motives, given the proximity of the Israeli elections, and announced legal action against Haaretz and journalist Shlomi Eldar.

There are therefore two directly conflicting accounts: a journalistic account asserting that the call took place and that a specific warning was conveyed to the prime minister, and an official Israeli account denying that the call or warning occurred.

The UAE’s Cautious Position

Abu Dhabi has chosen not to enter directly into the dispute.

The UAE Foreign Ministry said that the government does not comment on reports or speculation concerning conversations between government leaders. At the same time, it confirmed that direct and open channels of communication exist between UAE and Israeli institutions and that relevant intelligence is exchanged when necessary.

This position neither confirms the account published by Haaretz nor disproves it.

Politically, however, it leaves the issue open, particularly after other Israeli media reports suggested that Emirati information had reached the Shin Bet concerning the possibility of violent action by Hamas before October 7. The material also indicated that, according to these accounts, bin Zayed’s call to Netanyahu may have been intended to ensure that the information had reached the political leadership.

These accounts, however, also require independent and conclusive evidence.

The Broader Problem: How Is Information Interpreted?

Regardless of the ultimate determination regarding the alleged call, the controversy raises an important question about the nature of the failure preceding October 7.

The available material points to the existence of information and warnings before the attack, while also suggesting that some of this information was not interpreted as an indication of a large-scale and imminent attack.

This highlights one of the central challenges of intelligence work: having information does not necessarily lead to the correct assessment.

Information may be accurate while still being interpreted as an indication of a limited operation, part of negotiating pressure, or an attempt by one side to improve its position in negotiations.

In such circumstances, the central challenge is not simply collecting information, but testing the assumptions through which institutions interpret it.

Multiple Warnings and the Value of Accumulation

The issue becomes more significant in light of the material concerning an earlier Egyptian warning.

According to the investigation, Netanyahu also received a warning from then-Egyptian General Intelligence chief Abbas Kamel. Netanyahu reportedly believed that Israel understood what was happening in Gaza and that the primary source of danger was in the West Bank. Haaretz also quoted a Shin Bet official as saying that if the security establishment had been aware of both the Egyptian and Emirati warnings, it might have given greater weight to Sinwar’s message and reassessed the situation.

There is no basis for concluding that bringing these pieces of information together would necessarily have prevented the attack.

Institutionally, however, the accumulation of information from different sources remains an important component of intelligence assessment. Information that appears to have limited value when examined in isolation can become more significant when it intersects with independent sources.

The question raised by the controversy is therefore not simply whether there was a single “decisive piece of information” before October 7. It is whether different institutions possessed separate pieces of the picture without successfully integrating them into a unified assessment.

The Relationship Between Political Leadership and the Security Establishment

If the account concerning the alleged call is ultimately substantiated, it would raise an additional question about the relationship between political leadership and the security establishment.

According to Haaretz, Netanyahu did not brief the heads of the security agencies on the contents of the alleged call. If confirmed, this would raise an institutional question concerning how information relevant to national security moves from political leadership to the agencies responsible for assessing it.

It is important, however, to distinguish between two questions.

The first is factual: Did the call actually take place? What was said during it? And who received the information?

The second is hypothetical: What would have happened if the information had reached all of the relevant agencies?

The second question cannot be answered with certainty. An additional warning might have changed the assessment, but it might not have. The agencies might have taken different measures, or they might have continued to interpret the information through the prevailing assessments of the time.

For that reason, directly linking the alleged warning to the possibility of preventing the October 7 attack goes beyond what the available evidence can establish.

Netanyahu and Mohamed bin Zayed: The Relationship in a Broader Context

The controversy has acquired an additional dimension following a meeting between Netanyahu and Mohamed bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi that took place away from public view.

The visit was publicly acknowledged only after news of it had leaked. Netanyahu’s office said that the meeting focused on strengthening bilateral relations and discussing shared regional issues. Other media reports, however, linked the visit to the controversy surrounding the alleged warning before October 7, while Netanyahu’s office denied that the prime minister had asked bin Zayed to issue a denial of the reports.

According to the material available, there is insufficient public information to establish the meeting’s principal purpose.

Its timing, however, makes it difficult to separate it from three simultaneous contexts: the continuing Israeli debate over leadership responsibility for the October 7 failure, the upcoming Israeli elections, and a regional environment in which Iran occupies a central position.

The meeting can therefore be viewed as part of an effort to manage a strategically important bilateral relationship at a time when that relationship intersects with domestic political and security issues as well as broader regional calculations.

Iran in the Background

The importance of Israeli-Emirati relations extends beyond the October 7 controversy.

Iran remains one of the central issues in regional security calculations, but the UAE and Israel do not necessarily approach the issue from the same perspective.

Despite its close relations with Israel, the UAE also maintains channels of communication with Iran, along with economic and security interests there, and has sought to reduce the risks associated with a broader regional confrontation.

Israel, by contrast, views Iran through a more explicitly security and strategic lens, with particular attention to regional confrontation, Iran’s nuclear program, and the network of forces aligned with Tehran.

Consequently, any Israeli-Emirati coordination regarding Iran does not necessarily imply identical positions. Rather, it reflects the existence of shared interests in certain areas alongside differences in priorities and methods.

This makes the relationship between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv particularly significant at a time of growing concern over the possible expansion of regional tensions.

The Domestic Political Dimension

The Israeli domestic political context cannot be ignored either.

Responsibility for the October 7 failure remains one of the most sensitive issues in Israeli public debate, and each new account concerning warnings issued before the attack can influence discussion of the performance of the government and security agencies.

In this context, Netanyahu’s office accused the journalistic investigation of having a political timing, while the journalists who produced it stood by their account and said that they possessed documents and records supporting it.

Yet the possible political use of a piece of information does not determine whether that information is accurate.

Facts should be assessed independently of the parties using them in political disputes. This makes primary evidence, official records, direct testimony, and independent investigations essential to reaching a more accurate conclusion.

Who Is Responsible for the October 7 Failure?

The controversy once again raises the question of responsibility, but answering it requires avoiding simplistic explanations.

Major security failures generally result from the interaction of multiple factors: intelligence collection, analysis, information sharing, assessment of intentions, decision-making, and operational preparedness.

Consequently, establishing that a warning was not transmitted does not automatically mean that responsibility for the attack rests solely with whoever received it. Likewise, establishing an intelligence failure does not eliminate the political leadership’s responsibility for the decisions it made.

More important is to reconstruct the entire chain of decision-making: What was known at each stage? Who knew it? What assessment was built upon that information? And what measures were, or were not, taken?

These questions are more useful than reducing the issue to a single individual.

What Could Future Investigations Reveal?

If the controversy surrounding the Emirati warning continues, the value of any subsequent investigation will depend on its ability to answer a specific set of questions:

• Did the call between Netanyahu and Mohamed bin Zayed actually take place?

• What was the nature of the information available to the Emirati side?

• Did this information reach the Israeli security agencies, and when?

• What exactly did the prime minister know?

• Did Netanyahu pass the information to the heads of the security agencies?

• How did Israeli agencies interpret the information available to them?

• Was there other independent information that could have reinforced the warnings?

• What decisions were taken on the basis of the assessments available before October 7?

Answers to these questions could provide a more precise understanding of the nature of the failure, beyond political and media disputes.

Conclusion

The controversy surrounding the alleged Emirati warning has reopened a broader discussion about the information available before the October 7 attack and how it was transmitted and interpreted within Israel’s decision-making system.

At present, the conflicting accounts do not allow the question of the alleged call between Netanyahu and Mohamed bin Zayed to be conclusively resolved. The prime minister’s office denies that it occurred, while Haaretz relies on sources and documents that it says establish that it did. The UAE, meanwhile, has chosen neither to confirm nor deny the account.

The significance of the issue, however, does not depend solely on proving or disproving the call. Even apart from this specific episode, questions remain about the warnings issued before the attack, how they were interpreted, and how information was shared among institutions as part of the effort to understand the causes of the October 7 failure.

The subsequent meeting between Netanyahu and bin Zayed also places the controversy within a broader context involving the future of Israeli-Emirati relations, regional calculations concerning Iran, and Israel’s domestic political dynamics.

Ultimately, the most important institutional lesson does not concern a single piece of information. It concerns the ability of any security system to integrate fragmented information, challenge prevailing assessments, share warnings across institutions, and translate available knowledge into timely decisions.

These questions will remain open until independent evidence becomes available to establish what actually happened before October 7, how the information available at the time was transformed into decisions, and why some information may not have been.