Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the President of the United Arab Emirates, is the foreign head of state whose warnings to Benjamin Netanyahu about a coming Hamas attack, according to a 2026 Haaretz investigation cited by John Kiriakou, Netanyahu chose to conceal from the heads of his own intelligence services.
The direct call
In the days before October 7, bin Zayed “told Netanyahu directly over the phone” that Yahya Sinwar was planning a major operation against Israel. As Kiriakou paraphrases from the investigation, MBZ relayed to the CIA director at the time that he had warned Netanyahu, “Something was about to explode.”[1]
“To Mohammed bin Zayed’s surprise, Netanyahu reacted with calm.” Netanyahu, per the account, said his assessment was that Hamas intended to operate in the West Bank area, even though “there is no Hamas presence in the West Bank. Hamas is specific to Gaza.”[1][2]
The zilzal moment
When the Fatah intermediary code-named Coal Eyes carried back Sinwar’s first specific threat, that Sinwar was “preparing a huge surprise” and had used the Arabic word zilzal, meaning earthquake, bin Zayed weighed whether to pass it on. Per Kiriakou’s paraphrase of the Haaretz account, MBZ decided: “If we are not sure, we will not convey any warning to the Israelis for now. We will investigate the matter thoroughly until we are certain.”[3][4]
After a second meeting in which Sinwar told the intermediary he was preparing “the mother of all surprises, a terrifying operation, something extraordinary”, and again used the word zilzal, bin Zayed decided to call Netanyahu himself to convey the warning directly.[5][6]
Israel’s denial
The Israeli Prime Minister’s Bureau blasted the Haaretz report as “an absolute lie”, insisting Netanyahu “did not speak to the president of the UAE during the period in question, and he received no warning from him.” Kiriakou notes that multiple senior Israeli officials confirmed the call had taken place, and that both The Jerusalem Post and The Times of Israel confirmed the details of the reporting.[7][8]