Abu Dhabi Emir Mohammed bin Zayed reportedly personally warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a 45-minute phone call in late September 2023 that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza was planning “an earthquake” against Israel.
This was revealed by an investigation by Haaretz today, which features excerpts from a new book by journalist Shlomi Eldar on the background to the negotiations for the release of the 251 Israeli hostages kidnapped during the October 7, 2023, attack . According to the reconstruction, based on anonymous foreign and Israeli sources, bin Zayed's warning stemmed from conversations held in September 2023 with Sinwar by a Palestinian intermediary known as "Black Eyes," a Fatah leader with fluent Hebrew and ties to both Hamas and the Shin Bet, Israel's domestic intelligence service.
At that time, the Israeli government, which took office in late 2022, was secretly negotiating through this intermediary to reach a “hudna” with Hamas, a long-term truce agreement that included the gradual lifting of the blockade on Gaza, the creation of an industrial zone in the northern Strip, increased work permits for Palestinians, and the supply of natural gas to the Strip.
The deal was intended to conclude with the release of two living Israeli civilians and the bodies of two slain soldiers, held captive in Gaza for years, in exchange for the release of 30 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, including 20 serving life sentences. Negotiations stalled in August 2023, with Netanyahu postponing the convening of the ministerial committee required to approve the release. In early September, Haaretz reports, citing a Shin Bet source, Sinwar disappeared and stopped negotiating with the Israelis. He later reportedly asked his intermediary to convey the message to the Israelis that if they didn't move forward, he would unleash an "earthquake" (zilzal in Arabic). The intermediary relayed the message first to bin Zayed, through the Palestinian advisor to the Emir of Abu Dhabi, who emigrated from Gaza years ago. The investigation does not reveal his name, but his profile appears to match that of Mohammad Dahlan. On September 15, 2023, bin Zayed's Palestinian advisor passed the warning on to the Shin Bet, whose head reportedly informed Netanyahu and convened a security meeting on September 17, recommending decisive military action to eliminate Sinwar.
According to sources, Netanyahu asked the Shin Bet to present him with a plan, and the decision was postponed. At the end of September, ten days before the attack, bin Zayed reportedly phoned Netanyahu directly. That same week, according to Yediot Ahronot, Egyptian Intelligence Minister General Abbas Kamel also warned Netanyahu that Hamas was preparing "something unusual is coming." According to investigations, no one explicitly stated that the rumored "earthquake" would come from inside Gaza, but rather from the West Bank. The Shin Bet, Haaretz reports, made an even more erroneous assessment, claiming that Hamas was trying to "get its hands on Elisabeth Tsurkov," an Israeli researcher kidnapped in Iraq six months earlier.
Prime Minister Netanyahu's office denied reports of a phone call with the Emirati president, just as the head of Shin Ben and the then Mossad told Haaretz that they were never informed of bin Zayed's warning. The Emirati presidency declined to comment.
(Unioneonline)