Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday he would sue Israeli newspaper Haaretz and seek a criminal probe against its report that the UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed had warned him about 7 October 2023 attacks, according to the Times of Israel.
He called the report a politically motivated “sinister libel”, while ordering lawyers to sue Haaretz and journalist Shlomi Eldar over its claims.
Netanyahu later shared on X a Likud statement, which accused Haaretz, opposition leader Yair Golan and others of foreign interference in Israel’s elections.
The statement said that former Palestinian official Muhammad Dahlan, who supposedly was involved in the reported conversation between bin Zayed and Netanyahu, was “seeking to topple the right-wing government led by Netanyahu because he dreams of taking control of the Gaza Strip".
“To do so, he needs a weak left-wing government of Eisenkot, Golan, Liberman and the Arab parties. Such a government would withdraw from Gaza and hand it over to his control.”
