Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed he made a secret trip to the United Arab Emirates at the height of the Iran war to meet President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The Israeli Prime Minister's office said on Wednesday night that the visit led to a “historic breakthrough” in relations between the two countries. According to Reuters, the meeting took place in Al Ain, an oasis city near the Oman border, on 26 March.
The news agency also reported that Mossad director David Barnea made at least two visits to the UAE during the war to coordinate military actions, a detail first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, disclosed that Israel had shared its air defence system with the UAE, sending Iron Dome batteries and military specialists to operate them during the conflict. “There's an extraordinary relationship between the UAE and Israel,” Huckabee said.
The UAE foreign ministry denied the reports of Netanyahu's visit, describing them as “baseless”. However, the Wall Street Journal reported that the UAE had secretly carried out its own strikes on Iran, including an attack on a refinery on Lavan island in early April, in retaliation for Iranian attacks on its oil facilities. Reuters also reported that Saudi Arabia conducted retaliatory airstrikes against Iran and Iranian-backed Shia militias in Iraq during the early weeks of the war.
The UAE was the first Islamic country to agree to normalise relations with Israel under the Abraham accords in 2020, followed by Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. Since then, it has gone further than the others in forging a de facto alliance with Israel. The UAE also left the Saudi-led oil cartel Opec, a move that severely weakened the organisation's influence in global markets.
Both Israel and the UAE maintain close ties with the Trump administration, but remain vulnerable to shifts in Washington's policy direction. They also face scrutiny over alleged involvement in war crimes: Israel is accused of genocide in Gaza, with arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court for Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant. The UAE is widely believed to be arming and funding the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, a charge its government denies.
