UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan received Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who arrived in the country, on Sunday.
The sides discussed relations between the UAE and Israel, as well as ways to strengthen and develop bilateral ties.
Netanyahu was alleged to have arrived in the UAE on a private jet used by senior Israeli officials for international travel. The aircraft is owned by an Israeli businessman whose identity has not been disclosed. The visit had not been announced publicly in advance.
The meeting took place as claims were being debated that Netanyahu had failed to relay to the heads of Israel’s security agencies an alleged secret warning he received from the UAE president before Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israel's Channel 14, citing an unnamed Emirati source, reported that the meeting was held in two stages and that a second, expanded session was attended by representatives of the US, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Egypt, Kuwait, Bahrain, Libya and Oman, in addition to Israel and the UAE. According to the broadcaster, participants discussed security and intelligence cooperation between Israel and the UAE, a regional defense framework against "shared threats," measures concerning Iran and Yemen's Houthis, and a possible oil transport route bypassing the Strait of Hormuz. The countries named in the report did not immediately comment.