TEL AVIV (ISRAELE) (ITALPRESS) – A dozen days before the Hamas terrorist attack against Israel on 7 October 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have been personally warned by the United Arab Emirates leader that the Islamist power group in Gaza was planning a major offensive against Israel, but without informing the Israeli security leadership. It is reported by the Israeli daily Haaretz citing a new book, “Kidnapped: 843 Days of Abandonment” (Rapiti: 843 days of abandonment), journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval, based on interviews with dozens of sources, including high officials in Israel and around the world. The book states that three high foreign officials were informed of the content of the 45-minute call at the end of September, including a Mohammed bin Zayed advisor who had direct knowledge of the conversation. According to the sources quoted in the book, Mohammed bin Zayed would warn Netanyahu that the leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, was planning a far-reaching action against Israel that would lead to bloodshed, destabilized the region and potentially compromised the Abraham’s Agreements. Sources claim that the Emirate leader would be surprised by Netanyahu’s response that he would tell him that the situation was under control in Gaza, that any Hamas action would likely occur in the West Bank and that Israel was prepared for any scenario.
The indiscretions contained in the book and resumed by Haaretz indicate that Mohammed bin Zayed would have been aware of the threat of Hamas thanks to Sinwar himself, who in the middle of 2023 was frustrated by the lack of progress in the negotiations with Israel for the release of prisoners (Hamas at the time held several Israelis who had introduced themselves to Gaza on his own initiative, in addition to the bodies of two soldiers), and who had recently warned a high interlocutorah “Tell the Israelis that if they don’t step forward, I’m preparing a big surprise for them,” Sinwar said in a conversation. “Tell them to expect an earthquake,” he would add, according to sources. The report notes that on October 1 – six days before the terrorist attack – the then head of Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, once again proposed a preventive action against Hamas, including the assassination of high officials, but that Netanyahu would not have made any decision on this, limiting itself to saying that the intelligence agency should have submitted its proposals and that it would have evaluated them, without mentioning its conversation with the emirate leader. “If we were aware of the warnings, we would probably have given much more weight to the initial message that came from Sinwar,” said Haaretz a senior Shin Bet official. In response to the article, the Israeli Prime Minister’s office defines the report “a total lie. Prime Minister Netanyahu did not speak with the President of the United Arab Emirates in the period in question and received no warning from him.”.
– photo IPA Agency –
(ITALPRESS).
