Video summary
A recent report by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, detailed in a new book titled *Hostages*, alleges that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received an explicit warning from UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed regarding an impending Hamas attack days before October 7th, 2023. According to the transcript, during a forty-five-minute phone call roughly two weeks prior to the assault, bin Zayed informed Netanyahu that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was planning a major operation intended to destabilize the region and undermine the Abraham Accords. The Emirati president urged Israel to prepare for this specific threat and suggested diplomatic solutions to calm tensions in the West Bank, but Netanyahu reacted with relative calm, expressing confidence that Hamas would operate in the West Bank instead of Gaza.
The core of the controversy lies in Netanyahu's subsequent failure to brief his own security chiefs on this intelligence. The transcript reveals that despite the warning being relayed to CIA Director William J. Burns as well, none of Israel's top defense officials—including heads of Shin Bet, Mossad, and the IDF—were informed about the conversation or the specific threat posed by Hamas. Opposition parties have seized upon these revelations to demand an immediate investigation into why the Prime Minister ignored such critical intelligence and failed to act to protect citizens, arguing that his arrogance or complacency led to a catastrophic loss of life for both Israeli civilians and security personnel. This accusation strikes at the heart of Netanyahu's political career, which has long been built on a platform of prioritizing national security above all else.
Beyond the immediate political fallout, the transcript highlights the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the complex issues surrounding property rights and displacement. With over 70,000 Palestinians killed and vast areas of housing destroyed, many survivors are now frantically trying to salvage documents proving their ownership of land and homes before Israeli forces expand their control or plan new military enclosures. The discussion notes that without these deeds, which are often lost in the destruction of buildings during bombardment, Palestinians risk being rendered stateless and unable to return to their properties, effectively erasing their history and presence from the land.
The video concludes by analyzing the broader implications of these events for both Israeli society and international observers. Experts suggest that if the allegations against Netanyahu are true, they underscore a disturbing reality where people within the colonial state itself can become expendable collateral in the pursuit of expansionist goals. There is concern that such revelations could lead to increased securitization or radicalization rather than accountability, as some argue that proving a leader's incompetence might be used to justify even more extreme measures against Palestinians. Ultimately, the transcript frames these events not just as a failure of one individual, but as part of a wider systemic issue involving settler colonialism, where the safety and rights of Palestinian people are systematically disregarded in favor of political and strategic objectives.
Read the full video transcript
Israeli newspaper Harets has broken a
story that appears to confirm what many
have suspected for the last three years.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu not only received an explicit
warning days before Hamas broke out of
Gaza on October 7th, 2023, he also
failed to brief the country's security
chiefs on the intelligence. In late
September 2023, Herets reports that the
UAE's president, Shik Muhammad bin Zed,
also known as MBZ, was in regular
contact with Israel's government over
what he saw as an unraveling situation
in Israel and the Palestinian
territories. But a week and a half
before October 7th, bin Zed made a call
to Netanyahu to report more than just
concerns. Herets reports this. A week
and a half before October 7th, 2023, the
Emirati ruler called Netanyahu from the
presidential palace in Abu Dhabi and
spoke with him for 45 minutes. In that
conversation, bin Zed warned that
Hamas's leader in in Gaza, Ya Sinwa, was
planning a major operation against
Israel. Bin Zed expressed concern that
the event in question would not only
lead to bloodshed but also destabilize
the entire region and undermine the
Abram Accords. Three foreign senior
sources are familiar with the contents
of the conversation, the existence of
which is revealed here for the first
time. Goes on to say this. Also present
during the call was a close adviser to
bin Zed, a Palestinian who had
immigrated years ago from Gaza to Abu
Dhabi and maintained strong ties in the
strip. According to the adviser, the
Emirati ruler impressed upon Netanyahu
the need to prepare for the threat. The
Amir explained that in his assessment,
Sinoir was preparing for a major event.
The adviser says he told Netanyahu that
Israel should be ready. Concurrently, he
recommended trying to find an economic
solution for the strip and calming the
West Bank to prevent escalation. Bin Zed
urged Netanyahu to take the situation
seriously. To his surprise, however, the
prime minister reacted with relative
calm. Netanyahu said that in his
assessment, Hamas intended to operate in
the West Bank area and he reassured Bin
Zay that Israel was preparing for any
scenario and heret also reports this.
The Emirati ruler would later recount
the conversation he had with Netanyahu
and the warning he also relayed to CIA
director William J. Burns. Bin Zayed
shared with Burns the sense he tried to
convey to Netanyahu that something there
is about to explode and told him that
the Israeli prime minister believed the
volatile area was in fact the West Bank.
The Amir hoped that despite his reserved
response, Netanyahu would take the
message seriously and take action. The
adviser says none of them imagined that
the prime minister would hear the
message but wouldn't brief the heads of
the defense establishment. The head of
the Shinbet, the head of the Mossad, the
Israel Israeli Defense Forc's chief of
staff, none of them knew about bin Zed's
warning. Now, those claims come from a
new book called Hostages 840 days of
abandonment written by Herets's
reporters. They say it's based on dozens
of sources in Israel and worldwide,
including very senior officials. And
ahead of Israeli elections in October,
it's already making some waves. The
heads of the main opposition parties to
Netanyahu's Lakood have issued a
statement saying this. The shocking
revelations this morning demand an
immediate and thorough investigation.
They add to a growing body of
revelations about Netanyahu's failures
and dysfunction and once again
underscore why Netanyahu is fighting for
his political life to prevent the
establishment of a state commission of
inquiry and to prevent the truth from
being brought before the Israeli public.
The Israeli public has a right to know.
What did Netanyahu know? When did he
know it? Why did he fail to inform the
security establishment? And why did he
fail to act to protect the citizens of
Israel? Opposition parties have pledged
that if they win the election, they'll
open that commission of inquiry into
what Netanyahu knew prior to October 7th
and why he failed to act. Of course,
once October 7th happened, in which 800
Israeli civilians and 400 security
personnel were killed, Israel's almost
three-year long reaction continues with
over 70,000 Palestinians killed by the
country so far. Among them, more than
20,000 children. And that nightmare
continues. Israel still controls at
least 60% of Gaza with the enclaves
roughly 2 million strong population
squeezed into an ever shrinking area of
destroyed neighborhoods as Israeli
forces continue to advance. And while
92% of Gaza's housing stock has been
damaged or destroyed, Palestinians still
naturally long to return to their homes.
That's not easy. With the Financial
Times reporting today on the battle,
many Palestinians are fighting to prove
which part of Gaza's ruins they actually
own. Israel's assault on the strip has
destroyed libraries, archives, and
municipal buildings. And of course, when
you're fleeing missiles, bombs, bombs,
and drones, a state that really just
wants to destroy you and wipe you out,
you don't necessarily grab your deeds
before you go. The paper reports this.
Retrieving the missing evidence has
become increasingly vital. is Israeli
forces occupy more than half of the land
in Gaza and expanding zone of control.
While at the same time plans are being
discussed for militarized enclosures,
multinational security bases, and even
luxury real estate, fearing
dispossession, Palestinians have begun
collecting what documents they can from
across Gaza's shattered bureaucracies,
from water bills to property tax
receipts, anything that might show proof
of ownership. I mean, can you imagine,
you know, like if I think about where I
keep all my paperwork and I had to flee,
none of that would be coming with me,
you know, council tax bills, that would
that would all disappear in the blowing
up of the building that that that I live
in. And you know, where does your claim
go then? Adding to their anxiety is the
lack of care the US and Israel, who are
overseeing Trump's so-called Gaza
reconstruction plan, are paying to
Palestinian land rights. The article
goes on to say this.
US and Israeli officials have made plans
for the establishment of controlled
residential sites and troop bases in
areas held by the Israeli military, but
it's not clear how they will approach
the property rights of Palestinians.
Three people described meetings at the
civil military coordination center in
Israel, a US military-led headquarters
set up after a truce in October 2025, in
which planners at first reacted with
dismay and apparent surprise when told
that they had to consider who in Gaza
owned the land before any construction
went ahead. I mean, Benze, one of the
things that I've always worried about
with these front reconstruction plans
and so on so forth is it's it's a great
time for a land grab, right? It's a
great time to throw up buildings and
just be let's sort it out later, aka
never uh who this belongs to, whose land
we've actually built it on. And Israel
has done a very good job of ensuring
that actually those claims are very hard
to substantiate just as they do, I
suppose, in the West Bank in the way
that you like knock down people's houses
and so on and so forth. Um very hard
when once you've done that for the you
know to for people to make the claim
that there's something for them to move
back into.
>> Yeah. And you know, it just speaks to
the way in which the kind of broader
strategy of um the genocide in in Gaza
and it's about it's about completely
erasing like the presence of Palestinian
people. And clearly that's that's a
physical thing as in you want
Palestinian people off the land. Um but
also erasing and and kind of removing
all of their history as well, kind of
completely dismantling that. One of the
things that's always stood out for me a
lot in terms of thinking about the ways
in which Palestinian people don't have
their rights is I always thought about
the fact that many Palestinian people
obviously in Gaza they're stateless.
They don't have a passport. How do you
move around? How do you exist in this
world without that kind of
documentation? There's kind of a further
extension of that as well because of
course you don't have the documents to
prove that you own this house or this
piece of land. How
>> you actually don't even have the
documents to prove that you're not not
um someone who's entered um Gaza, right?
belong there which helps with I guess
things like um you know mass moving
people out of it at some point.
>> No no no no not at all. That's a really
good point and yeah in in the sort of
the aftermath of of the fog of war again
this speaks to the the urgency in which
people were saying we we can't in the
aftermath of October 7th just have kind
of Gaza raised. We can't just have this
kind of indiscriminate bombing. um this
is this is just another way in which
those people have been proven to be
absolutely right about that because now
we're looking at a total mess. We're
looking at a a very long prolonged
period of time where you know people
people are not going to have access to
to the things they should have had
access to. They're not going to have
access to the the homes that they should
have access to. Then who benefits from
that? You know the settler colonialists
benefit from that? They get something
out of that whilst Palestinian people
continue to suffer and not have their
their full rights. So it's it's it's
really really devastating to be honest.
And again thinking I suppose about what
the UK government is going to have in
response to you know in response to the
to that they've steered quite clear of
talking about Gaza a lot today has been
about the West Bank and for a long time
there's been a long precedent in this
country actually of of successive
governments talking about the West Bank
and talking about you know extreme
settlers David Cameron used to talk
about the same thing actually um so in
some ways that rhetoric is not brand new
right but they're not talking or they're
not touching Gaza as much and yet there
is a total total mess that we have
helped as a state to facilitate there
where there's a lot of big questions to
answer that that they they aren't
confronting as of yet.
>> I think that's completely right. Let me
ask you about this book that's come out
just in time for the elections and this
claim that it made that that it makes
that Netanyahu had had good information
um about October 7th and didn't brief
any of his security apparatus.
>> Um I mean what do you make of the claim?
What do you make of the timing?
>> Yeah, it's it's long been rumored. Yeah.
you know that this this has kind of had
the murmurings
for a long time to be honest since since
October 7th really. So I'm not surprised
if this is the case or it or it has
merit. Um the timing is is interesting,
isn't it? Um I don't know if there are
power holders or power players in Israel
who just think actually Netanyahu's time
it it's time for it to be up actually.
Um and so there may be moves um for for
that to happen that may benefit some
people. feel like it's going to be in
Israel's better interest at this point
that Netanyahu at some point perhaps
just loses this election. Um, if it is
true, then it it underscores something I
think very important. And I don't know
to what extent wider Israeli society
will you know be able to kind of take
this in or most Israelis will but it
underscores the way in which in the
pursuit of colonialism and of settler
colonialism just how many people can
become collateral and expendable and of
course the primary targets of that in
this situation are Palestinians people
in Gaza absolutely but of course it also
starts to include people within the
colonial state itself and and so Israeli
people potentially then in that
situation
have been deemed as acceptable
collateral in the pursuit of a wider
goal of greater Israel. And that should
be something that really wakes people up
in in Israel. I don't know if it will if
that's the case and this is true, but
that should be something really quite
gling to to contend with. You are also
an instrument in this. You potentially
are also expendable. Yes, of course you
b, you know, they benefit from settler
colonism. Of course they do. But there
is a portion of you at least who who may
also suffer or be deemed be acceptable
to suffer in this kind of grand
expansionary plan.
>> Yeah. I mean I guess it's important to
say that um it's not clear from what was
written in heret today. The accusation
isn't that um Netanyahu deliberately
suppressed the information because he
wanted something to happen. Um plenty of
people have speculated about about that
in which case you know that would if
that were true that would show the
expendability but there's also you know
even if you ignore it right or even if
you just forget about it or even if
you're just so arrogant which is the
claim that the opposition parties in
Israel are making you're so arrogant and
complacent that you think you know
what's going to happen so you don't put
the put the information to your security
services that shows that you that there
is some disregard for your own people
right um which results in expendability
right if you're not really thinking
about about security, then of course a
result a result of that could be that
you you actually do you do think they're
expendable, but not for like strategic
purposes, which is the the kind of
stronger claim, I guess.
>> And you know, he he I feel like he's
built his political career a lot on
talking about how seriously he takes
security, right? That's kind of like a
major pillar of of of his politics,
right? And so if you don't have that
anymore, if you don't have that to be
able to tell people, and security is a
thing that of course scares people. You
know, telling people your life is in
immediate danger. Maslo's hierarchy of
needs, that's, you know, very very much
a foundational foundational uh need for
people is for people to be kept safe if
if your whole thing is that you can't
keep people safe actually despite the
fact that that's what you've been
telling your your electorate for a very
long period of time. To me, that
suggests that maybe he as a leader, he's
just not really going to have much much
use. I suppose anymore um at all. I mean
it it frustrates me in a sense because I
suppose it means that we kind of
overpersonalize the issue a little bit
and a lot of the issues that happen that
are going on um with Israel then become
distilled into one man and one person or
maybe one government. And obviously like
we think that it's you know it's it's a
far more wide ranging issue um than
that. And and the other thing I thought
about as well was that it could also
lead to a kind of solidifying of of
hyperscurity as well if people might be
like well even Netanyahu you know didn't
have the ability to be able to keep us
safe or you know got a bit complacent so
now we need to go even more further in
terms of you know really securitizing
our our settler colonial state basically
and so it could it could also swing a
worse way it's difficult to imagine it
being worse but it could also swing to a
more extreme
>> I mean it's not difficult to imagine it
being worse cuz we have like ministers
in his cabinet who say worse things like
you talk about the expulsion the mass
expulsion of Palestinians from from from
from Gaza that the only the only way to
settle this will be to get them out. Um
I mean I don't think that those those
ministers are anywhere near I mean the
problem with with Israeli politics is
it's all kind of moving coalitions and
you know and and you know you end up
whoever wins is going to have to end up
working with people they don't
necessarily want to work with in order
to to to hold power.