UAE Confirms Unannounced Abu Dhabi Visit by Israel's Netanyahu

The United Arab Emirates has confirmed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi, marking an unannounced weekend trip amid soaring West Asian regional tensions and political turbulence in Israel.

The state-run Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported that the leaders reviewed bilateral ties and explored avenues to develop cooperation, according to Al Jazeera. The visit was initially kept under wraps until Israeli broadcast networks, including Channel 12 and KAN, alongside newspapers Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post, broke news of the one-day trip on Sunday, The Hindu reported.

Following the initial media leaks, Israel’s domestic security agency Shin Bet lodged a formal complaint with the country’s military censor, reporting that the uncoordinated disclosures compromised prime ministerial security and laid bare intelligence methods, according to Nepali news outlet Onlinekhabar, citing The Associated Press.

The covert diplomatic mission takes place against the backdrop of an expanded regional conflict involving an Israel-United States campaign against Iran that commenced in February, Hindustan Times reported. Ties between the UAE and Israel were formalised in 2020 through the US-mediated Abraham Accords. Underscoring that defense relationship, the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, announced in May that Israel had stationed Iron Dome air defense batteries and operators inside the UAE to counter potential Iranian strikes, Al Jazeera noted.

Netanyahu’s visit also comes roughly a month ahead of high-stakes parliamentary elections scheduled for late October, with opinion polls showing the prime minister trailing a challenge led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, Onlinekhabar reported. Eisenkot sharply criticized the premier on social media platform X, arguing that Netanyahu remains unfit to lead after ignoring repeated warnings before the October 2023 Hamas attacks, according to Hindustan Times.

The Abu Dhabi talks further followed an uproar triggered by a September 9 Haaretz report asserting that Sheikh Mohamed had personally alerted Netanyahu about ten days before the October 7, 2023 attacks that Hamas was preparing a massive offensive. Netanyahu vehemently rejected that report, branding it fabricated and politically motivated while pledging to file a defamation lawsuit. The October 7 attacks by Palestinian fighters resulted in at least 1,195 deaths in southern Israel and around 250 abductions, sparking an Israeli military campaign in Gaza that has killed at least 73,669 Palestinians, according to Al Jazeera.