Former Mossad official challenges claims Israel received pre-Oct. 7 warnings

Former senior Mossad official questions reports that Egypt and the UAE warned Israel prior to the October 7, 2023, invasion.

By World Israel News Staff

A former senior Mossad official said Monday that he was unaware of alleged warnings from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates about an impending Hamas attack before October 7, 2023, adding a new layer of dispute to a growing series of accounts claiming that foreign governments raised alarms with Israel shortly before the massacre.

Eyal Tsir Cohen, who previously headed the Mossad division responsible for international diplomatic relations, said he had no recollection of receiving information about several warnings that have surfaced in recent weeks.

“I do not recall any reports regarding a warning from MBZ and Sufian Abu Zaida, nor do I recall a visit by Abbas Kamel,” Cohen told Galei Tzahal, referring to UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed, former senior Fatah official Sufian Abu Zaida and then-Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel.

Cohen’s account does not definitively rule out the alleged communications.

He acknowledged that Kamel could theoretically have made a highly secret visit to Israel without passing through the Mossad unit Cohen headed.

But Cohen said he met repeatedly with Kamel and members of the Egyptian intelligence chief’s team after October 7 and that neither the purported visit nor a warning about Hamas was raised in those meetings.

His comments come as several overlapping accounts have emerged alleging that Israel received information from Egyptian, Emirati and Palestinian channels suggesting Hamas was preparing an extraordinary move in the weeks before terrorists invaded southern Israel on October 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.

The allegations remain sharply contested.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly denied receiving a direct warning from the Emirati president and has threatened legal action over the claim.

“No warning was given to the Prime Minister from the United Arab Emirates before October 7th,” the Prime Minister’s Office has said. “If there was any relevant information, it was passed through intelligence channels between the two countries.”

Netanyahu has separately called the allegation that bin Zayed personally warned him an “absolute lie.”

An Emirati official has also pushed back on the account, saying the UAE handles such intelligence through professional security channels rather than direct conversations between national leaders.

“The UAE discusses security matters with other countries through the relevant bodies, and does not discuss details of this kind at the level of the leaders of the countries,” the official said.

The controversy intensified earlier this month after an investigation alleged that bin Zayed spoke with Netanyahu roughly 10 days before October 7 and warned that then-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was preparing a major operation.

According to that account, the Emirati leader warned that the planned move could cause extensive bloodshed, destabilize the region and threaten the Abraham Accords.

Netanyahu’s office says the conversation never took place.

Separate accounts have since focused on Egypt.

One media report published over the weekend reported that Kamel secretly flew to Israel on September 26, 2023 — 11 days before the Hamas attack — aboard a chartered Cessna aircraft associated with Egyptian intelligence.

According to that account, Kamel spent only a little over an hour in Israel and warned senior Israeli officials that Egyptian intelligence was seeing mobilization indicating that Hamas could be preparing an unprecedented attack.

The information reportedly did not include an exact date or the specific manner in which Hamas would strike.

Additional reporting published Sunday alleged that Egypt issued multiple warnings over Gaza in the period leading up to the attack, including a direct telephone call from Kamel to Netanyahu after earlier concerns had failed to produce a response.

Netanyahu’s office has disputed reports of direct prewar contacts with Kamel.

A third warning channel has emerged through Abu Zaida, who recently described a message he said Sinwar personally dictated to him during a September 14, 2023 meeting in Gaza.

Abu Zaida displayed what he said was the handwritten message, which he claimed Sinwar instructed him to transmit to Israel exactly as stated.

“Before the end of September, we will put the cards on the table,” the message read. “There will be an earthquake regarding the negotiations, and they should prepare to empty the prisons.”

Abu Zaida said he transmitted the message in both Hebrew and Arabic.

According to his account, Israeli contacts responded within half an hour to verify that Sinwar had actually used those words and summoned him to an urgent meeting the following morning.

Abu Zaida said the Israelis wanted to know what Sinwar meant by an “earthquake” and what “cards” Hamas intended to place on the table.

The warning apparently centered on negotiations over Palestinian security prisoners, and it did not explicitly describe the cross-border invasion, mass killings and hostage-taking that Hamas would carry out three weeks later.

The existence of several purported warning channels has fueled renewed debate over whether information available before October 7 was insufficiently specific to predict the attack or whether disparate signals should have been recognized as evidence of an imminent offensive.

Former Mossad director Danny Yatom said Monday that the accumulating accounts could not simply be dismissed.

“We’re talking about two or three different sources that warned,” Yatom told Galei Tzahal. “You can’t ignore that.”

Benjamin NetanyahuEgyptOctober 7United Arab Emirates