{"id":612709,"date":"2026-09-11T10:34:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T10:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/612709\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T10:34:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T10:34:16","slug":"israel-warned-of-potential-hamas-kidnapping-operation-in-years-before-october-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/612709\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel warned of potential Hamas kidnapping operation in years before October 7"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mediators between Israel and Hamas<\/a> had warned that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was considering launching a major kidnapping operation for years before the October 7 massacre, Col. (res.) Doron Hadar told Kan News on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hadar, who participated in negotiations over hostages held by Hamas before October 7, said that mediators said that the stalemate would lead Hamas to consider a major attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe understanding was that in the absence of a hostage deal, there would be no other choice, and Hamas would take a game-changing step to alter its situation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the years, we received messages, including from the various mediators, that if we did not make progress toward a deal, Sinwar<\/a> was considering launching a major kidnapping operation in order to obtain other assets,\u201d Hadar said, although he gave no indication that any specifics were given in any of the warnings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This comes amid controversy over a Haaretz report that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received a warning<\/a> from the UAE President Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ) that Hamas was planning a major operation against Israel days before the October 7 massacre.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Netanyahu reportedly dismissed the warning despite MBZ urging him to take the threat seriously, the report said, citing three senior foreign sources familiar with the contents of the conversation.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu has strongly rejected the allegations<\/a> and has instructed his lawyers to issue a libel lawsuit against Haaretz, the Prime Minister’s Office announced on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The lawsuit will also target Shlomi Eldar, the Haaretz journalist who covered the story.<\/p>\n

The PMO stated that the story was completely fabricated and that there had been no communication between Netanyahu and the UAE from the start of September 2023 until the October 7 attack.<\/p>\n

Shir Perets and Tzvi Jasper contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mediators between Israel and Hamas had warned that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was considering launching a major kidnapping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,59,51,1031,85,46,43,58,44781],"class_list":["post-612709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-gaza","tag-gaza-hostages","tag-hamas","tag-idf","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-the-october-7-massacre","tag-yahya-sinwar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612709","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=612709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}