Abu Dhabi

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the United Arab Emirates on Sunday, where he met UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi during a trip made aboard a private aircraft. Israel’s Channel 12 was the first to report the visit, before a diplomatic source confirmed it to The Jerusalem Post.

According to available information, Netanyahu departed Ben Gurion Airport shortly after 12:00 p.m. aboard a private executive jet — the same aircraft he used to travel to the UAE during the war with Iran earlier this year — and landed in Abu Dhabi at 3:10 p.m.

After spending approximately four hours in the UAE, the aircraft departed at 7:10 p.m., returning to occupied Palestine.

In a later post, the Prime Minister’s Office confirmed that Netanyahu and his wife had visited the UAE at the invitation of President Mohammed bin Zayed. Netanyahu was accompanied by the head of the National Security Council, the director of Mossad, his military secretary, and his foreign policy adviser.

Israel’s Channel 14 reported that Netanyahu’s visit was not limited to meetings with Emirati leaders, but also included representatives from other Arab countries, including Saudi representatives.

In a development reportedly linked to the same visit, Italian newspaper Il Foglio said Netanyahu secretly met in Abu Dhabi with Saddam Haftar, deputy commander of forces in eastern Libya and the son of Khalifa Haftar.

The newspaper reported that Saddam Haftar’s aircraft arrived from Benghazi and landed at Abu Dhabi’s Al Bateen Airport at 12:40 p.m., approximately 20 minutes after Netanyahu’s aircraft arrived at the same airport.

The newspaper quoted Mohammed Buisier, a former political adviser to Khalifa Haftar, as saying that the timing was not a coincidence and that Saddam Haftar met Netanyahu to seek political support for his ambitions to become president of Libya.

It added that Saddam Haftar has reportedly held contacts with Israeli officials before. In 2021, reports emerged that his aircraft had travelled to Tel Aviv and that contacts had taken place with Israeli officials.

The visit comes amid controversy surrounding a report by Haaretz claiming that Mohammed bin Zayed warned Netanyahu ten and a half days before the October 7, 2023 attack that Hamas was planning a major operation against Israel, and that the warning was not passed on to Israeli intelligence agencies or the military.

The UAE declined to comment on the report, but said that it and Israel have maintained

“open and direct channels of communication”

since establishing diplomatic relations in 2020.

Reuters quoted a former Emirati source as saying that Abu Dhabi discusses security matters with other countries through

“the relevant authorities,”

rather than

“at the level of national leaders.”

Earlier this year, the UAE denied that bin Zayed had met Netanyahu after the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said in May that Netanyahu had made a

“secret visit”

to the Gulf state and met the president.