Netanyahu meets Emirati leader in a secret weekend trip to Abu Dhabi, and other Mideast developments
Benjamin Netanyahu traveled secretly to the United Arab Emirates over the weekend to ask its leader to deny reports he'd warned the Israeli prime minister about a looming Hamas threat ahead of the Palestinian militant group's Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.
The meeting between Netanyahu and Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan took place on Sunday, two people who were briefed on the Israeli leader's trip confirmed on Monday.
Meanwhile, the European Union's top diplomat Kaja Kallas said the bloc is applying for observer status in a Saudi-led maritime defense coalition formed to protect the kingdom's energy exports. The EU already has six vessels deployed to the Red Sea to protect shipping.
Here is the latest news from the Middle East on Monday. Full coverage is available here.
The Israeli prime minister held an hourlong meeting with the UAE’s president on Sunday, according to two people briefed on Netanyahu's trip, which was first reported by Israel’s Channel 12 TV station.
One of them said the talks focused on a report published by the Israeli daily Haaretz earlier this month that said the Emirati leader warned Netanyahu about a looming attack by Hamas just ahead of Oct. 7, 2023.
Netanyahu asked Sheikh Mohamed to deny the report, according to a person said to have firsthand information about the meeting. Netanyahu’s office had previously denied the Haaretz report.
The person, along with a regional official briefed on the meeting, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the secret trip.
The UAE’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment on reports about the meeting but stressed it maintains “open and direct lines of communication” with Israel and shares “all relevant intelligence.”
There was no immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office.
—By Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Samy Magdy in Cairo
The European Union is applying for “observer status” in a new multinational maritime defense coalition led by Saudi Arabia formed to protect the kingdom’s energy exports.
The bloc’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas made the announcement on Monday, ahead of a Brussels meeting. The energy-hungry EU is facing record energy prices due to the war in Iran.
Kallas said she will ask for an expansion of the bloc’s own small naval force in the Red Sea dubbed ASPIDES to help escort cargo vessels through the key strategic chokepoint of the Bab el-Mandeb strait and protect them from attacks by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
Kallas said the “need is bigger than it’s ever been” for more ships. It’s unclear what observer status in the Saudi-led coalition would mean operationally for either the EU or ASPIDES.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has praised his country’s fighters for allegedly preventing “enemy forces” from “roaming freely” in the Strait of Hormuz.
Khamenei said in a message carried by the state broadcaster on Monday that Iran’s enemies now “do not come" closer to the strait than the Arabian Sea, which is part of the Indian Ocean.
Soon, "the Arabian Sea too, will be rid of them,” said the message, issued to mark the two-year anniversary of the killing of the militant Hezbollah group's longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon.
Khamenei hasn't been seen or heard publicly since the opening attacks of the war on Feb. 28 that killed his father and previous supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The World Health Organization said Sunday it has documented 164 deaths and 645 injuries from the war in Yemen between Sept. 19 and Sept. 26.
This brings the overall casualties since Aug. 6 to 4,481, with 838 fatalities. The latest intense fighting between the Iran-backed Houthis and Yemeni government forces has displaced more than 180,000 people.
A woman was killed while her husband was wounded when an Israeli strike hit a Gaza City rooftop, Shifa Hospital officials said. Another person was also wounded and remains in critical condition.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
More than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed since the Gaza ceasefire took effect nearly a year ago. Around half of that number are women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which maintains detailed records that international organizations consider reliable.
Israel’s polarizing Cabinet minister in charge of settlement construction, Bezalel Smotrich, has condemned a decision by the attorney general to freeze a contentious project near Jerusalem.
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara ordered the project to be put on hold until after the Oct. 27 elections so it wouldn't “be used for election propaganda.”
The project — known as E1 settlement development — is especially controversial because it would carve out a strategic section of the West Bank in a way that critics say would destroy hopes for a viable future Palestinian state.
Smotrich accused on X Baharav-Miara of “interfering in the election campaign” and acting in the service of Netanyahu’s political opponents.
Israel summoned the Spanish Embassy’s chargé d’affaires over remarks by Spain's youth minister who declared the country's public support for a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea” — a slogan that implies a call for the elimination of the Israeli state.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry said Monday that Spanish Youth Minister Sira Rego’s remarks were “part of a systematic anti-Israel policy pursued by the Spanish government” and its leader, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. Rego was barred from entering Israel in Sept. 2025.
___
This report will be updated throughout the day as new developments emerge.
© Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
