The Media Line: Hamas’ Messenger Speaks to TML on Pre-Oct. 7 Warning: Prisoner Exchange or ‘Earthquake’ Coming 

Hamas’ Messenger Speaks to TML on Pre-Oct. 7 Warning: Prisoner Exchange or ‘Earthquake’ Coming 

Sufian Abu Zaida says Yahya Sinwar used him to relay an ominous message to Israeli security officials weeks before Oct. 7, while the Prime Minister’s Office rejects reports that Netanyahu received advance warning of the Hamas attack 

By Elias Zananiri/The Media Line 

On Sept. 14, 2023, 23 days before Hamas attacked southern Israel, then-Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar met former Palestinian Authority minister Sufian Abu Zaida in Gaza City and dictated an ominous message for Israel. 

The two had been involved for more than a year in a secret backchannel seeking a prisoner exchange. But this message was different. 

Sinwar said that by the end of September, Hamas would put proposals on the table that would cause an “earthquake” in the negotiations and that Israel should prepare to empty its prisons. 

Abu Zaida asked whether Sinwar really wanted those words delivered to Israel. 

“Do you want me to convey this message?” he asked. 

Sinwar replied, “Of course. I dictated this message to you—word for word, letter for letter—so that you would deliver it to the Israelis exactly as it is.” 

Abu Zaida says he still has the handwritten note. 

His account, given this month in an extensive interview with the Egypt-based Al-Ghad television network, adds new detail to questions that have shadowed Israel since Oct. 7, 2023: What warning signs did Israeli security officials receive before the Hamas attack, how were they interpreted and how far up the chain did they travel? 

The account does not establish that Sinwar was warning Israel of the Oct. 7 assault. His message was delivered in the context of prisoner-exchange negotiations, and its meaning remains disputed. But Abu Zaida says the wording alarmed Israeli security officials enough to prompt urgent calls and a meeting the following morning. 

Abu Zaida was unusually well placed to operate such a channel. A longtime Fatah figure who later served as Palestinian minister for prisoners’ affairs, he had extensive experience with prisoner issues and negotiations involving Israel. 

The channel began in mid-March 2022, when Hamas political bureau member Ghazi Hamad contacted Abu Zaida about the four Israelis then held in Gaza. The two already knew each other from an Israeli prison, where they first met in 1989 while serving sentences for activities associated with Fatah and Hamas, respectively. 

Hamad wanted to discuss a possible exchange involving civilians Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed and the bodies of Israeli soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul. 

Abu Zaida was initially cautious. Before opening such a sensitive channel, he wanted to be certain that Hamas’ senior leadership had authorized the approach. 

He contacted a retired Shin Bet officer he knew from previous negotiations. 

“He had long since retired, but I contacted him [the former Israeli Shin Bet officer] and asked for his help in conveying this message—to see if they were willing to receive it,” Abu Zaida said. 

The former officer passed the message onward. Soon afterward, a representative from the Shin Bet chief’s office met Abu Zaida and asked whether he had formal authorization from Hamas. 

“I told him that of course I was authorized. He then asked who exactly gave me the authorization, and I said it was the highest authority in Hamas, Yahya Sinwar.” 

In July 2022, Abu Zaida met Sinwar in Gaza. Hamad and senior Hamas official Rawhi Mushtaha were also present. 

Sinwar described the categories of Palestinian prisoners he wanted included in an agreement: women, prisoners under 18, sick prisoners, longtime inmates, and Palestinians released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit exchange who had later been rearrested. 

The main obstacle was Israel’s refusal to release certain Palestinian prisoners convicted of killing Israelis. 

Abu Zaida pressed both sides to compromise. 

“I told him that in negotiations, there must be a compromise; otherwise, why negotiate?” he said of his discussions with Sinwar. 

He told the Hamas leader: “In negotiations, one cannot get everything; without concessions from both sides, there can be no deal.” 

Abu Zaida made the same argument to Israel, saying it “must lift the veto on releasing Palestinian prisoners convicted of killing Israelis or those who have already served extended periods in jail.” 

As the talks progressed, Abu Zaida met then-Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar, the only time the two met face to face. 

According to Abu Zaida, the Israeli side suggested that a successful prisoner agreement could open the way to broader measures for Gaza, including additional permits for Palestinians to work in Israel, improvements to the electricity system and reconstruction. 

“If we succeed in finalizing this deal, it will open many doors that are currently closed to Gaza—regarding the entry of workers, the rehabilitation of the electricity grid, reconstruction, and so on,” Abu Zaida recalled being told. 

The negotiations became increasingly detailed. 

“We started discussing specific names and exchanging lists; we agreed on some and objected to others, leading to further rounds of discussion. Israel would agree to additional names—naturally, as is the nature of negotiations, each side sought to secure the best possible terms,” Abu Zaida said. 

For roughly a year, the process advanced, stalled and resumed. 

Sinwar remained dissatisfied. Israel, Abu Zaida said, believed it had reached the limit of what it was prepared to offer for two living civilians and the remains of two soldiers. 

Then came the Sept. 14 meeting. 

Abu Zaida recalled Sinwar saying that while progress had been made, it was not enough. 

“Sinwar stated that while there had been good progress, it was insufficient. He asked that a message be conveyed to the Israelis that by the end of September, proposals would be placed on the table that would cause an “earthquake” in the negotiations, and that they needed to prepare themselves to empty prisons.” 

Abu Zaida transmitted the message to the Israeli side in both Arabic and Hebrew to reduce the possibility of misunderstanding. 

The response was immediate. 

Less than half an hour later, he said, an Israeli official called to ask, “Are you certain about this message? Did he really want you to convey it to us?” 

Abu Zaida confirmed that he did. 

Two hours later, he was summoned to an urgent meeting the following morning in Ashkelon. 

Abu Zaida said a senior Israeli official he identified as “Oscar,” whom he described as the southern district commander, attended along with negotiating team chief Adi Rotem. 

“They asked me, ‘Do you realize that no one in Israel—meaning within the security establishment—slept last night? What were the cards he [Sinwar] said he would put on the table? What exactly did he mean by an earthquake?’ They were trying to decipher the message. They asked me about the context in which the message was delivered, and if Sinwar had been provocative or angry. I told them no—he was neither angry nor provocative; he was completely calm.” 

Abu Zaida relayed Israel’s reaction back through Hamad and Mushtaha because he did not have a direct communications channel with Sinwar at that stage. 

September ended without the promised new proposal and without clarification of what Sinwar meant by “earthquake.” 

Abu Zaida returned to Gaza on Oct. 5. He was scheduled to meet Sinwar again on Oct. 8. 

Instead, Hamas-led gunmen crossed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 others to Gaza. 

The backchannel ended. 

“I had no more reasons to speak to the Shin Bet or any other Israeli official after 7 October. The backchannel hadn’t functioned since then. Subsequently, there hadn’t been any further meetings with the Israeli side,” Abu Zaida said. 

Bar’s personal involvement in the earlier negotiations has attracted additional attention because of the bitter dispute that later developed between the Shin Bet director and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

Both the political and security leadership came under scrutiny after Oct. 7. Bar acknowledged the Shin Bet’s failure to prevent the attack. The agency’s subsequent internal investigation also found that government policies toward Gaza and Hamas had contributed to the conditions in which the attack became possible. 

Their relationship deteriorated further in 2025. Netanyahu said he had lost confidence in Bar and sought his dismissal, citing the security failure and what the prime minister described as a breakdown in trust. 

Bar presented a sharply different account. In a sworn court filing, he accused the prime minister of expecting personal loyalty and of pressing the Shin Bet to take steps Bar considered improper, including action involving anti-government protesters. Netanyahu rejected those allegations. 

The conflict also overlapped with Shin Bet investigations involving aides to Netanyahu, including the so-called Qatargate affair. In May 2025, the High Court of Justice ruled that the government’s decision to dismiss Bar had been unlawful and that Netanyahu faced a conflict of interest because the Shin Bet was investigating people close to him. Bar had already announced that he would resign the following month. 

There is no public evidence that the Abu Zaida backchannel or Sinwar’s Sept. 14 message caused the rupture between Netanyahu and Bar. The episode is relevant to the wider debate over responsibility for Oct. 7 because it indicates that Israeli security officials regarded Sinwar’s unusual wording as sufficiently serious to demand immediate clarification. 

Abu Zaida said he did not involve Palestinian or Israeli security bodies beyond the contacts necessary for his mediation. 

“I operated on my own. Only after the tough message Sinwar handed me did I speak to Mohammed Dahlan and his second-in-command in the Reform Trend, Samir Mashharawi. My mission was to shuttle between Hamas and Israel, and that was exactly what I did.” 

Those contacts have become important in another disputed part of the story. 

Haaretz journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruti Yuval reported this month that Sinwar’s message ultimately reached United Arab Emirates President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan through Abu Zaida’s connections to former senior Palestinian official Mohammed Dahlan, who lives in the UAE and advises the Emirati leader. 

According to the Haaretz account, Mohammed bin Zayed interpreted the message as an indication that Hamas could be preparing a major operation and warned Netanyahu roughly 10 days before Oct. 7. 

The Prime Minister’s Office has categorically denied that account. 

“No warning was given to the prime minister from the United Arab Emirates before October 7th,” it said, adding that any relevant information would have passed through intelligence channels. Netanyahu called the report false and said he intended to sue Haaretz and the journalists involved. 

The Media Line also sought a direct response from the Prime Minister’s Office about Abu Zaida’s account and reports that warnings were conveyed before Oct. 7. 

David Mencer, a spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Office, told The Media Line: “All these stories are fake news, as the prime minister tweeted.” 

Asked whether that was the Prime Minister’s Office response to the claims, Mencer repeated: “All these stories are fake news.” 

He said the reports were “attempts to blame the prime minister for October 7.” 

“And they’re repeated again and again,” Mencer said. “And no matter how many times they are repeated, it doesn’t make them any more true. They are all fake news.” 

Mencer did not address Abu Zaida’s description of the backchannel, the Sept. 14 meeting with Sinwar or the subsequent meeting with Israeli security officials individually. 

The Prime Minister’s Office has also issued broader denials of the UAE account, saying no conversation between Netanyahu and Mohammed bin Zayed matching the reported warning appeared in its records. 

The UAE initially declined to become involved in the Israeli political dispute. An Emirati official later told the state-owned National that security matters between countries are handled through the appropriate agencies and rejected the assertion that such details were conveyed between the two leaders. 

Other reporting has supported elements of the warning claim. The Associated Press reported on the Haaretz allegations while noting that it had not independently established that the call occurred, and subsequent reporting has cited sources saying information did reach Israel through Emirati channels. Netanyahu’s office continues to deny that he personally received the warning. 

A separate and increasingly detailed dispute concerns Egypt. 

The Atlantic reported this month that Abbas Kamel, then head of Egypt’s General Intelligence Service, flew secretly to Israel on Sept. 26, 2023, 11 days before the Hamas attack. Citing officials in Israel, Egypt, the United States, Europe and other Arab countries, the magazine reported that Kamel warned senior Israeli officials that Hamas appeared to be mobilizing for an unusually serious escalation. 

The reported warning did not contain an attack date, target or detailed operational plan. According to The Atlantic, Kamel instead conveyed the gravity of what Egypt was seeing and urged Israel to take steps to reduce tensions in Gaza. The magazine also reported that further Egyptian warnings followed before Oct. 7. 

The Prime Minister’s Office has rejected the claim that Netanyahu received such a warning. 

It said Netanyahu “has not spoken or met with the head of Egyptian intelligence since the establishment of the government, neither directly nor indirectly,” and said no Israeli intelligence official had passed such a warning to the prime minister. 

Responding again this weekend, the Prime Minister’s Office called the report a “false claim” that had been “recycled to manipulate the Israeli public.” 

Tzachi Hanegbi, who was Netanyahu’s national security adviser at the time, also disputed The Atlantic’s account, denying that Kamel made the reported Sept. 26 visit or that Egypt delivered such a warning. 

Former Mossad international diplomacy chief Eyal Tsir Cohen told Army Radio on Monday that he was unaware of any warnings from Egypt or the United Arab Emirates to Israel or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu surrounding the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.   

“I do not recall any reports regarding a warning from MBZ [Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed] and Sufian Abu Zaida [a former senior Fatah official], nor do I recall a visit by Abbas Kamel [the Egyptian intelligence chief],” Cohen said.   

While acknowledging it was possible that Kamel had made an unpublicized trip to Israel without the Mossad division being informed, Cohen said he met repeatedly with Kamel and members of his team after Oct. 7, and none of those discussions included any reference to either such a trip or a prior warning.  

The Atlantic has stood by its reporting, which it said was based on officials from seven countries. 

The issue predates the latest investigations. On Oct. 11, 2023, four days after the attack, then-US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said following a classified briefing that Egypt had warned Israel several days before Oct. 7. Egyptian and Israeli accounts have differed ever since over what was communicated, who received it and how specific it was. 

None of the disputed UAE or Egyptian accounts establishes that Netanyahu or other Israeli leaders knew Hamas would attack on Oct. 7, or that they knew the operation’s timing, targets or scale. 

Nor does Sinwar’s message to Abu Zaida prove that Hamas’ leader was deliberately warning Israel of the assault. The reference to an “earthquake” was made during negotiations over prisoners, and Sinwar did not explicitly tell Abu Zaida that Hamas was preparing a military operation. 

Taken together, though, the accounts raise a narrower question: how did different parts of Israel’s political and security establishment interpret unusual signals arriving during the final weeks before Oct. 7, and what information was shared among them? 

Abu Zaida said he came forward after Haaretz referred to the Palestinian intermediary only by the pseudonym “Coal Eyes.” He said he wanted to prevent speculation about his role and insisted that he had represented no government or organization. 

His purpose, he said, had been narrower: to seek an exchange of the four Israelis held in Gaza for an agreed number of Palestinian prisoners and, if successful, help open the way to broader improvements in Gaza. 

What remains unknown is what Sinwar intended Israel to understand when he chose the word “earthquake.” 

Israeli security officials, according to Abu Zaida’s account, considered the message unusual enough to seek an explanation within minutes and summon him to an urgent meeting the next morning. 

Twenty-three days after Sinwar dictated the message, Hamas launched the deadliest single attack in Israel’s history.