Informative · Diplomacy

Israel's spy agencies just accused a TV station of endangering Netanyahu's life

2 days ago · 29 September 2026Share

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister. — Official portrait of Israel's 9th Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Avi Ohayon · CC BY-SA 3.0

Israel's Shin Bet just filed a legal complaint against a TV station.

The reason? Channel 12 reported on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's secret trip to the United Arab Emirates while his plane was still in the air.

Here's the timeline. The broadcast aired at 9:38pm. Netanyahu's plane didn't land in Israel until 10:27pm, almost an hour later.

So the Shin Bet says Channel 12 put his life at risk while he was still airborne.

Netanyahu had flown secretly to Abu Dhabi a day earlier to meet the UAE's president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The UAE didn't confirm the visit until the following evening, a full day later.

Who else was on that plane? Sara Netanyahu, his wife. The Mossad director. The head of Israel's National Security Council. The military secretary, Major General Guy Markizano. The head of the Shin Bet's security division. Plus the flight crew and the security team.

The Shin Bet says all of them were put at risk. It wants Channel 12 prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

And it's not just the Shin Bet. Mossad submitted its own separate assessment, calling the leak a serious security threat and asking for it to be formally marked as damage to state security.

So that's two Israeli intelligence agencies, not one, calling this a security failure on the record.

But here's the twist. This complaint just confirmed something Netanyahu's office had denied only a day before: why he actually went.

People briefed on the trip say Netanyahu flew to Abu Dhabi to ask Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed for a public favour. He wanted the UAE president to deny reports that he'd personally warned Netanyahu about a looming Hamas attack, days before 7 October 2023.

Those reports came from Haaretz. It reported earlier this month that the UAE president called Netanyahu about ten days before the attack, warning him about a threat from Hamas's then-leader, Yahya Sinwar, that he called a huge surprise.

So what did the UAE actually say? Not a denial.

The UAE Foreign Ministry said only that Abu Dhabi keeps direct contact with Israel and shares intelligence with it.

The rest of this story is for members.

That's a country choosing not to say the meeting never happened.

Netanyahu's office is calling the report fake news. It says the trip was at the UAE president's invitation, and focused on strengthening ties and regional challenges.

On how long the meeting actually ran, the sources don't agree. People briefed on the trip say the Netanyahu-bin Zayed meeting itself lasted about an hour, followed by a separate, expanded meeting with officials from other Middle Eastern governments. But another account says the meeting with bin Zayed ran around six hours. No source reconciles the two figures — though a short bilateral meeting followed by a longer regional session would explain both.

Netanyahu has separately and repeatedly denied the Haaretz report itself. He calls it fabricated and politically motivated, and says he'll sue the newspaper.

And the timing here matters a lot.

Israel holds elections next month. Netanyahu is trailing in the polls against Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief. Any suggestion that he had advance warning of the deadliest attack in Israel's history, and didn't act on it, would hurt him badly weeks before that vote.

Israel and the UAE have been building this relationship since the UAE signed the US-brokered Abraham Accords back in 2020. The US ambassador to Israel said in May that Israel has stationed Iron Dome batteries and troops in the UAE against a possible Iranian attack. This trip happened inside that relationship, at a moment both governments clearly wanted kept quiet.

So what don't we know? Whether the Mossad director actually attended — only one outlet names him at all. What conditions, if any, the UAE placed on Netanyahu's delegation. And whether the UAE will ever directly address the Haaretz warning claim.

The Shin Bet's own complaint says quote "publishing the visit created a risk to the prime minister's security and to forces on the ground".

Mossad's assessment says quote "this leak constituted a serious security threat to the prime minister and the delegation".

For now, here's the clearest fact to come out of all of this. Netanyahu asked the UAE for a public denial. And the UAE said no.

Comments

None yet

Already a member? Log in.

Israel's spy agencies just accused a TV station of endangering Netanyahu's life

Comments

Related reporting

Qatar just called Netanyahu a war criminal while still talking to Iran

Flydubai's plane just survived a cockpit stabbing over Saudi Arabia

America just gave Iran a deadline and kicked its diplomats out of New York