At dawn on Tuesday, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement confirming that Netanyahu’s recent visit to the UAE focused exclusively on strengthening bilateral relations and discussing regional challenges and issues.
The Israeli statement categorically denied what was stated in a previous report by the Associated Press about other goals of the visit, during which he was accompanied by his wife, Sarah Netanyahu, the head of the National Security Council, Shmuel Ben Ezra, the director of the Mossad, Roman Hoffman, and the military secretary, Guy Marchesino, in addition to his foreign policy advisor, Ofir Falk.
The Associated Press had quoted a knowledgeable person as saying that the talks touched on a report published by the Haaretz newspaper, in which it was claimed that the Emirati President, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, warned Netanyahu of an imminent threat from the Hamas movement ahead of the attack on October 7, 2023, and that during the meeting, Netanyahu asked Bin Zayed to deny the authenticity of the report, which was noted by the Prime Minister’s Office, which had previously rejected the content of the Haaretz report as well.
For its part, the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs refrained from commenting on the reports related to the meeting, but stressed that Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv maintain open and direct lines of communication and exchange relevant intelligence information between the two sides.
