The political storm engulfing Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over reports of additional foreign warnings about Hamas’ 7 October attack expanded on Saturday and Sunday when more revelations surfaced amid the looming Israeli elections, with the Israeli premier countering with a fiery and defiant speech about Israel’s defence at the UN.
The New York Times on Saturday confirmed a previous Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz report that UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed secretly warned Netanyahu of the Hamas’ 7 October attack and that Israel’s premier did not pass on the warning to his security officials.
Also on Saturday, the US news magazine The Atlantic reported that Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel secretly visited Israel 11 days before 7 October attack to warn of a significant Hamas attack.
And on Sunday, former Israeli Defence minister Yoav Gallant told the Israeli Army Radio that Israel received a message from Hamas through Israeli internal national security agency Shin Bet channels weeks before the 7 October attack, in which the then Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar warned that he would “shake the prisons”.
The revelations come at a time when Israel’s election campaign is in full swing for the vote next month and Netanyahu’s handling of the 7 October attack is a key issue in the campaign. The revelations also coincide with the prime minister’s fiery speech at the UN General Assembly, widely considered asa message to the voters in Israel.
Israel’s opposition leaders have launched a series of scathing attacks on Netanyahu, calling for an investigation into the warnings that Israel’s prime minister allegedly received in the run-up to the attacks and whether he ignored them.
The prime minister’s office (PMO) repeatedly denied the media reports calling them false.
Haaretz previously reported that 10 days before the attack, the UAE president allegedly warned Netanyahu in a 45-minute-call that the leader of Hamas in Gaza at the time, Yahya Sinwar, was planning a major attack against Israel. The Haaretz report claimed Netanyahu “reacted with relative calm” and assured bin Zayed that Israel was prepared for any scenario.
At the time, Netanyahu’s office called the report “an absolute lie” and denied he spoke to the Emirati leader. “The press reports are false. No warning was given to the prime minister from the United Arab Emirates before 7 October,” the PMO said in a statement.
Netanyahu faces fresh scrutiny over alleged warnings before 7 October
But on Saturday, the New York Times published its own extensive investigation citing multiple officials matching the Haaretz revelations, alleging that Netanyahu was warned by the Emirati president before the Hamas attack and that the warning was not shared with Israel security chiefs.
In parallel with the New York Times report, the Atlantic published its own investigation alleging that on 26 September 2023, Egypt’s intelligence chief Abbas Kamel made a secret 67-minute visit to Israel to warn of a possible Hamas attack, but the warning did not include specific details.
The Atlantic report said Kamel urged Israel to reduce tensions in the Gaza Strip and that it was not clear whom he met during his 1-hour long stay in Israel.
According to The Atlantic, officials from seven countries told its journalists that such a short personal visit from Egypt’s intelligence chief himself should have been noticed by Israel’s political and security leadership and that Egyptian warnings allegedly continued until two days before the attack, but still without further specifics.
Just days after the 7 October attack, the PMO said that Netanyahu “has not spoken or met with the head of Egyptian intelligence since the establishment of the government, neither directly nor indirectly”. Then on Saturday, the same office repeated that the report in The Atlantic “was denied at the time and is being recycled to manipulate the Israeli public,” the Jerusalem Post reported on Sunday.
“On October 11, 2023, Egypt officially denied that it had warned Israel of the October 7 attack,” the PMO said, adding that “in the months preceding 7 October, prime minister Netanyahu neither met nor spoke with Abbas Kamel, then head of Egypt’s General Intelligence Service. No Israeli intelligence official conveyed such a warning to the prime minister”.
The US media reports were followed on Sunday by new revelations from former Israeli Defence minister Yoav Gallant who said that the Hamas leader at the time of the 7 October, Yahya Sinwar, warned Israel before the attacks that he would “shake the prisons”.
In an interview with Israeli Army Radio, Galant said that Sinwar allegedly sent his message to Israel’s Shin Bet security agency through a former senior Fatah official during secret negotiations for a prisoner exchange deal before the Hamas attack.
Gallant also alleged that Netanyahu did not include him and senior security officials in sensitive conversations with the United Staes during the war.
“During the war, I learned many times about important conversations Netanyahu held with the Americans on the most sensitive issues, such as hostages and ammunition, only after the Americans called me and tried to verify what had been said in those conversations,” Gallant told the Israeli Army Radio, adding that “their trust in the prime minister was low”.
When asked about the foreign warnings’ allegations, Gallant said he was not informed of them during his time as defence minister.
“I first heard about these warnings from media reports,” he said, adding that “assuming these things are true, such a warning that a prime minister receives from the leader of a country is not a political asset; it is a fundamental failure in the overall assessment of the situation”.
Netanyahu attacks critics at UN as Israeli election looms
Israelis are due to head to the polls on 27 October for a national election to determine the 120-seat Knesset (parliament).
Despite a growing onslaught by the opposition, Netanyahu has so far rejected multiple calls for an official government inquiry into the events surrounding the 7 October attack following other accusations of his handling of the crisis.
As the Israeli election campaign is in full swing, Netanyahu used his speech at the United Nations General Assembly last Thursday to reaffirm his hardline stance on Israel’s protection to voters at home, but also as a series of messages to the world.
“You know any other country the size of New Jersey capable of fighting a seven front war? And for three years? They all ganged up on us to wipe us off the face of the Earth,” Israel’s prime minister said in his speech outlining his doctrine against Israel’s enemies, but also its critics.
But as he walked to the podium to begin his speech, dozens of delegations walked out of the General Assembly hall in protest at Israel’s policies, but many others stayed, including the United States, Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Japan, India and others, prompting Netanyahu to say: “If there are any other moral cowards who haven’t yet left this hall, please do so now.”
“Now, you want to hear the ultimate irony? Israel is also defending many of the countries whose delegates just left this hall. In fact, I want you to know that many of their leaders even thank us privately for taking out Iran’s nukes,” Netanyahu reacted to the departures.
He then engaged in a series of fiery attacks on countries and leaders that he perceives as enemies of Israel or of himself.
On Iran, he predicted that “this evil regime will fall” because “the power of the people will overcome the people in power!” as the “murderous regime will be toppled by its lies, by its corruption, by its cruelty”.
To showcase the danger of Iranian missiles, he explained to the assembly that a one-ton ballistic missile “would obliterate the entire compound,” and that “two such missiles would obliterate the UN”.
He mocked Hezbollah by taking out a pager and saying “you remember the beepers? Remember these things? Remember them? Well, I can tell you this, Hezbollah certainly remembers them.”
He singled out “people” in the United Kingdom and France when talking about accusations of “colonialism” againt Israel, saying “who accuses us? Among them, people in the United Kingdom and France. But for the love of God, they are the ones who invented the term! Their colonies stretched across the entire planet. Colonialism? Leave us alone!”
He again accused Qatar repeatedly, saying that Qatar had spent millions to “brainwash young minds to hate Israel, hate America and hate the West,” culminating with “this is the same Qatar that hosts the Hamas butchers of October 7th.”
He also accused several countries, including Qatar and Turkey, of spending billions to spread lies in the media against Israel.
Qatar rejected the accusations saying that “this continuing rhetoric against Qatar is nothing more than an attempt to divert attention from the atrocities committed by his government in the occupied Palestinian territories and their grave humanitarian consequences”.
But his strongest words went against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan whom he accused of being “a tyrant who also hosts Hamas terror leaders,” who “illegally occupies Northern Cyprus, an EU member,” who “as a NATO member, regularly violates Greece’s borders,” “who wants to take over Syria” and, most of all, who “calls for Israel’s destruction and he says he will be the ruler of Jerusalem”.
“No, sir, you won’t. It is our city,” Israel’s prime minister said.
While Netanyahu maintained that accusing Israel of “genocide” is the “biggest lie of the century,” Turkish president Erdoğan declared in his own UNGA speech that “we face a genocidal mindset that can never get enough of killing. No one with humanity, mercy or conscience can turn a blind eye,” describing Gaza as “the most inhumane, most shameful concentration camp of our time”.