A newly published investigation alleges that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was personally warned about Hamas’s planned assault weeks before it happened, and chose not to act on the information.
According to excerpts from the upcoming book “Hostages: 843 Days of Abandonment,” written by journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, president of the United Arab Emirates, called Netanyahu in late September 2023—roughly ten days before the October 7 attacks—to alert him to a large-scale operation being prepared against Israel.
The tip reportedly carried the code name “Zilzal,” Arabic for “earthquake,” a term the authors say symbolized the scale of the threat Hamas was allegedly planning. Despite the gravity of the warning, the report claims Netanyahu dismissed or downplayed the intelligence, a decision that has fueled renewed criticism of his government’s handling of security failures leading up to the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians in decades.
The revelation adds to a growing body of accounts suggesting Israeli officials had received multiple signals about an impending Hamas offensive but failed to mobilize an adequate response. Netanyahu has faced sustained political pressure over accountability for the October 7 attacks, which triggered the ongoing war in Gaza.
To read the full investigation and additional details, check out the original report from El Tiempo.
Source: ¿Netanyahu sabía de atentados de Hamás? Revelan supuesta llamada con presidente de EAU antes del 7 octubre de 2023 (eltiempo.com). English version produced with AI assistance.
Image: Archives New Zealand, BY 2.0 (via Openverse).