DUBAI (Dispatches) -- Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu made an unannounced visit to the United Arab Emirates on Sunday, meeting President Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi, according to Israeli media reports and a senior Israeli official who confirmed the trip to Reuters.
Netanyahu’s office and the UAE Foreign Ministry both declined to comment on the visit, which was first reported by Israel’s Channel 12 and Kan TV News. The Israeli prime minister traveled by private aircraft on Sunday morning, spent several hours in the Emirati capital, and returned to the Israeli occupied territories that evening.
The reported trip comes as ties between Israel and the UAE have deepened sharply amid the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, which began in late February. 
The UAE has emerged as Israel’s most consequential Arab partner in the terrorist war of aggression.
According to a U.S. official, Israel deployed Iron Dome air-defense batteries and Israeli personnel to the UAE during the war, a move confirmed by U.S. Ambassador to Tel Aviv Mike Huckabee and the U.S. representative to the United Nations. 
The coordination marked an unprecedented level of military cooperation between the two regimes since they normalized relations under the Abraham Accords in 2020.
The visit also follows controversy over a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that Sheikh Muhammad warned Netanyahu roughly ten days before the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack that the group was planning a major operation. 
Netanyahu has denied the report and threatened legal action against the newspaper, while the UAE has declined to confirm or deny it.
A source familiar with the visit told CNN that Netanyahu asked Sheikh Muhammad to deny the Haaretz report during their meeting, which lasted approximately one hour. 
The UAE Foreign Ministry has said it does not comment on media reports about conversations between leaders, but maintains that “all relevant intelligence has been and continues to be communicated between the relevant entities”.
The meeting comes exactly one month before Israel’s October 27 election, where the October 7 security failures have become a central campaign issue. 
Gadi Eizenkot, Netanyahu’s main challenger, said the reported warning raised serious questions about Netanyahu’s handling of the period before the attack.
During Netanyahu’s speech at the UN General Assembly last week, Emirati and Bahraini delegates remained seated while 77 other representatives walked out in protest, a visible signal of Abu Dhabi’s continued alignment with Israel amid the regional escalation.