{"id":442915,"date":"2026-05-15T10:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T10:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/442915\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T10:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T10:44:08","slug":"idf-chief-of-staff-secretly-visited-uae-during-operation-roaring-lion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/442915\/","title":{"rendered":"IDF Chief of Staff secretly visited UAE during Operation Roaring Lion"},"content":{"rendered":"

IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir<\/a> made a secret visit to the United Arab Emirates to meet with counterparts during Operation Roaring Lion, a security source told Walla on Friday.<\/p>\n

Zamir’s visit included a US delegation accompanying the IDF delegation to strengthen cooperation across various scenarios in a war with Iran, including both defensive and offensive operations.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Zamir’s wartime visit to Abu Dhabi indicates exceptional strategic cooperation between Israel and the UAE, a direct result of the Abraham Accords and recognition of the IDF’s strength, security sources said.<\/p>\n

Behind the scenes, there are breakthrough processes that are taking place on a historic scale, the sources added. They could not elaborate on the processes at this time, but said they would establish relations between the countries for years to come.<\/p>\n

Recently, a delegation of IDF officers visited the UAE to expand cooperation, transfer military and technological knowledge, and hold discussions with UAE personnel in Israel.<\/p>\n

Additionally, reports emerged that Israel transferred Iron Dome batteries and laser systems to the UAE to defend against threats from Iran. These were later corroborated when US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee<\/a>, confirmed that Israel sent Iron Dome batteries to the Gulf state.<\/p>\n

Zamir is not the only senior member of the Israeli security echelons to have held a secret visit to the UAE during Operation Roaring Lion.<\/p>\n

Later on Wednesday, the Prime Minister’s Office confirmed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> met with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan at the start of Operation Roaring Lion.<\/p>\n

This was later denied by the UAE’s Foreign Ministry and, in turn, reconfirmed by Netanyahu’s then-spokesperson, Ziv Agmon.<\/p>\n

Amichai Stein, Shoshana Baker, Shir Perets, Goldie Katz, and Maariv contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir made a secret visit to the United Arab Emirates to meet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1585,49,2464,42,1031,16096,43,157283,73,40,38,41,39,1078],"class_list":["post-442915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-abu-dhabi","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-eyal-zamir","tag-headlines","tag-idf","tag-mossad","tag-news","tag-operation-roaring-lion","tag-shin-bet","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-uae"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}