Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly acknowledged for the first time that Abbas Kamel, Egypt’s then-intelligence chief, came to Israel shortly before Hamas’s attack of October 7, 2023. In a Channel 14 interview on Tuesday evening, Israel’s prime minister said Kamel did not meet or speak with him, and said he did not know which Israeli official received the Egyptian visitor.
Netanyahu said he was attending a memorial ceremony for fallen IDF soldiers when Kamel arrived. “He didn't meet with me, he didn't speak to me,” he said.
Kamel, a close associate of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, spent 59 minutes on the ground in Israel. Netanyahu called for an investigation into the visit, saying: “Egypt's intelligence minister was here. He spent 59 minutes on the ground. I want to know who he met with.”
His account places a new public admission alongside reports that Egypt, and separately the United Arab Emirates, delivered warnings to Israeli leaders in the months before the Hamas attack.
Egypt had conveyed an earlier, less specific warning as far back as June 2023. About 10 days before October 7, UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed warned Netanyahu by phone of indications that an attack might be coming, according to Haaretz. Netanyahu did not appear persuaded and did not pass the warning to his security chiefs.
The Atlantic reported that Kamel secretly visited Israel on 26 September 2023, warning Israeli officials that Hamas appeared to be preparing a major assault. It said he urged Israel to make economic concessions to Hamas in an effort to avert a confrontation.
A former Israeli official briefed on that meeting described Egypt’s message in starker terms: “If you don't change course, Gaza is going to explode in your face.”
Yedioth Ahronoth and The Wall Street Journal also reported that Kamel called Netanyahu days before October 7 to warn of signs of an imminent attack from Gaza. The Wall Street Journal described that call as Egypt’s third warning, after earlier warnings had gone unheeded.
The warnings did not contain specific intelligence on either the timing or scale of the planned attack. Hamas launched its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Netanyahu has previously denied personally receiving advance knowledge, saying his security chiefs had failed to warn him adequately. His office initially dismissed The Atlantic’s account as “a false and recycled claim intended to mislead the public,” while Netanyahu himself described reports that Kamel had warned him as “fake news.”
He also rejected the suggestion that an intelligence chief would ordinarily see a national leader directly. “Since when does an intelligence chief come and speak with a head of state? That has never happened, not even once. There's no such thing,” Netanyahu said on Channel 14’s The Patriots.
Footage, however, shows Netanyahu hosting Kamel in 2021.
On Tuesday, Netanyahu returned to the question of who received Kamel during the visit. “I want to know who he met with. There are cameras, there is footage, and I want to know the truth, because the truth is that I did not meet with him. Whoever met with him is trying to pin it on me.”
It remains unclear which Israeli official met Kamel, what was conveyed in that meeting and whether Israeli security chiefs received and acted on the warnings. Netanyahu’s acknowledgement establishes that Kamel was in Israel. It does not resolve what reached the prime minister through other channels.
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