Netanyahu met with UAE president Sunday in rare trip to country, both sides confirm

Jerusalem (CNN) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the United Arab Emirates on Sunday and met with the country’s president, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, both countries confirmed on Monday.

An Israeli source familiar with the visit told CNN on Sunday that the secret meeting was dominated by discussion of Iran, an arena where the two countries have deepened their cooperation, including during the current Iran war.

WAM, the state news agency of the UAE, confirmed that Sheikh Mohammed and Netanyahu held a meeting in the country on Sunday.

The two leaders “discussed bilateral relations between the UAE and Israel and ways to strengthen and further develop them,” WAM reported.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s office said that the meeting focused on “strengthening relations between the two countries and regional challenges.”

The visit included Netanyahu’s wife, the head of the National Security Council, the head of the Mossad, a military secretary, and a political adviser, the office said.

The rare trip comes exactly one month before Israel’s October 27 election and against the backdrop of heightened political controversy in Israel over reporting by Haaretz and The New York Times alleging that Sheikh Mohammed had warned Netanyahu of a major Hamas operation days before the October 7, 2023, attack.

The Atlantic separately reported that Egypt’s intelligence chief Abbas Kamel flew to Israel on September 26, 2023, to warn that Gaza would “blow up.” And on Sunday, The Wall Street Journal reported that there were at least three Egyptian warnings conveyed to Israel about Gaza, the last one in a phone call to Netanyahu, just days before the attack.

Netanyahu’s office has repeatedly denied receiving any warning and has dismissed the reports as fabricated lies aimed at damaging him electorally. But his rivals have used the allegations to make accountability for the failure to prevent the October 7, 2023, attack a central campaign issue.

After initial reports of a warning from Sheikh Mohammed, the UAE’s Foreign Ministry said earlier this month that it “does not comment on media stories or speculation regarding conversations between government leaders,” but it did not deny the call. “When necessary, all relevant intelligence has been and continues to be communicated between the relevant entities,” the statement said.

At the time, an Israeli source familiar with the matter said Netanyahu’s office tried to get the UAE to deny the report, but the UAE only agreed to issue a statement about intelligence sharing.

Neither Israel nor the UAE mentioned the reported October 7 warning in their Monday statements about Netanyahu’s trip.

Netanyahu’s Likud party subsequently issued a statement, posted on the prime minister’s X account, alleging “blatant foreign interference” in Israel’s elections by UAE-based Palestinian politician Mohammed Dahlan. The party provided no evidence for the claim.

Netanyahu’s rivals, meanwhile, have seized on the reported warning to renew their attacks on his handling of the events preceding October 7.

Gadi Eizenkot, currently polling as the prime minister’s main challenger in Israel’s upcoming elections, said Saturday that the revelation about the warning “leaves no room for doubt: Netanyahu led, with blindness, arrogance and irresponsibility, the State of Israel to the greatest disaster in its history.”

In May, Netanyahu’s office said the prime minister had secretly visited the UAE in March, during the early days of the Iran war, calling it a “historic breakthrough.” The UAE foreign ministry, however, denied his claim at the time as “completely unfounded.”

During the war, Israel is also said to have deployed an Iron Dome missile defense system to the UAE and Israeli officials have said security cooperation between the two countries reached unprecedented levels.

Netanyahu has never made a publicly acknowledged official visit to the UAE.

CNN Eyad Kourdi contributed to this report.

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