Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travelled to Abu Dhabi on Sunday and held a private meeting with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a senior Israeli official told Reuters.
Neither Netanyahu's office nor the UAE foreign ministry immediately issued a statement regarding the high-level meeting between the two countries.
The unannounced visit comes as attention has again focused on a report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which claimed that Sheikh Mohammed had warned Netanyahu roughly a week and a half before the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack that the group was planning a major operation against Israel. The report said the warning was not conveyed to Israeli intelligence agencies or the military.
Netanyahu has rejected the report and threatened to take legal action against Haaretz. He is also campaigning for re-election amid criticism from opposition leaders, who have accused him of responsibility for security failures ahead of the Hamas attack.
The UAE has not commented on the Haaretz report. However, Abu Dhabi has said that the UAE and Israel have maintained "open and direct lines of communication" since establishing diplomatic ties under the Abraham Accords in 2020.
A UAE source previously told Reuters that security issues are communicated with other nations through the "relevant entities" rather than being handled "at the level of national leaders".
Netanyahu and Sheikh Mohammed have previously been reported to have met privately in the UAE as well. In May, Netanyahu's office said that the Israeli leader had made a "secret" trip to the Gulf nation and met its president. The UAE, however, denied that Sheikh Mohammed had met Netanyahu.
A person familiar with the matter later said the two leaders had in fact met in Al-Ain, an oasis city in Abu Dhabi close to the UAE's border with Oman, on March 26.
The UAE has deepened its relations with the United States and Israel after coming under attack during the Iran war. Its diplomatic ties with Israel, established through the Abraham Accords in 2020, have also provided Abu Dhabi with a channel to exert regional influence and maintain communication with Washington.
