Netanyahu was warned about Hamas attack days before October 7. He did nothing — New book makes explosive claim

Netanyahu Was Warned About Hamas Days Before Oct 7

Theindiapostdaily.com – A newly published book by two Israeli journalists alleges that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received a direct telephone warning from the president of the United Arab Emirates roughly ten days before Hamas launched its October 7, 2023 assault on southern Israel. The claim — that Netanyahu was warned about Hamas preparing a large-scale operation and took no visible action — has ignited fresh fury in an already volatile domestic debate over intelligence failures and leadership accountability.

The volume, Hostages: 843 Days of Abandonment, is built on dozens of interviews and documentary material collected across Israel and abroad. At its centre sits the allegation that UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan placed a forty-five-minute call from the Abu Dhabi presidential palace approximately a week and a half before the massacre, specifically to alert the Israeli prime minister that Yahya Sinwar was assembling an operation capable of destabilising the wider region.

What the Book Says Happened on the Line

According to the authors, bin Zayed expected an alarmed, heightened reaction. Instead, they write, Netanyahu answered with an unusual composure that left the Emirati leader surprised. The book further claims that the UAE president had maintained a steady flow of bilateral communications with senior Israeli figures in the months before October 7, reaching both the prime minister and President Isaac Herzog. In one detail the authors flag as particularly telling, a UAE diplomat is said to have personally handed Netanyahu a dedicated secure telephone for these exchanges — a gesture implying a level of diplomatic intimacy rare even in the post-Abraham Accords landscape.

The prime minister’s office did not wait for the book to circulate before responding. Netanyahu dismissed the allegation flatly, calling it

“an absolute lie,”

and stated that no such conversation with bin Zayed took place during the period described. For a leader whose coalition rests on fragile ideological alignments, the denial carries strategic weight: acknowledging the call would mean acknowledging that he was told, in advance, that a catastrophic operation was imminent and chose not to alter Israel’s posture.

Sinwar’s Pre-Operation Briefing and Political Fallout

A second thread in the book concerns Sinwar himself, the Hamas political leader still held in Gaza and the most wanted figure in Israeli captivity operations. The authors report that Sinwar briefed a former Palestinian Authority official on the planned assault before it began, describing it as

“a terrifying operation”

and likening it to

“an earthquake.”

The metaphor suggests those at the heart of Hamas’s leadership grasped the scale and ambition of what was coming, complicating any narrative that October 7 was a sudden surprise even within the organisation that carried it out.

The book’s release lands amid acute political vulnerability for Netanyahu. Opposition figures have seized on the new allegations to demand a formal state commission of inquiry into what Israeli leaders knew, when they knew it, and whether the security establishment was briefed in advance. Gadi Eisenkot, former Mossad chief and current Likud rival who now leads a centrist opposition bloc, framed the question bluntly: the public is entitled to know the full scope of the prime minister’s awareness in the days before the massacre and whether that awareness reached the military and intelligence apparatus.

The stakes are measured in human cost. Hamas fighters killed more than 1,200 people — most of them civilians, many at an outdoor music festival near Kibbutz Re’im — and seized 251 hostages, dragging them into Gaza through tunnels and overland routes. The assault shattered the fragile quiet that had held between Israel and Gaza since the 2021 ceasefire and triggered a full-scale Israeli military campaign in the Strip. The conflict quickly widened beyond Gaza’s borders as Lebanon’s Hezbollah opened a parallel front along the northern border and Iran escalated its involvement through proxy forces.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the title of the book making these claims? The book is called Hostages: 843 Days of Abandonment, authored by two Israeli journalists and published in 2025.

Who allegedly made the warning call to Netanyahu? UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan is named as the caller, with the conversation reportedly originating from the presidential palace in Abu Dhabi.

How did Netanyahu’s office respond? The office issued a categorical denial, labelling the allegation “an absolute lie” and stating that no such conversation took place in the period described.

What is the book’s central argument beyond the single phone call? It contends that multiple channels of advance warning existed — including the alleged bilateral communications and Sinwar’s own pre-operation briefing to a Palestinian official — and that Israel’s leadership had actionable intelligence it failed to act upon.

Has a formal inquiry been launched? As of the book’s publication, opposition leaders including Gadi Eisenkot have called for a state commission of inquiry, but no such commission had been formally convened.