The UAE denied Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s surprise claim that he had made a secret visit to Abu Dhabi during the war and secured a “historic breakthrough” with President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed.
Netanyahu’s office said the visit had deepened cooperation, but the UAE foreign ministry pushed back, insisting reports of the “alleged visit” were false and that ties with Israel were conducted transparently through the Abraham Accords framework.
Netanyahu’s former Chief of Staff Ziv Agmon — who resigned in March — posted that he had joined Netanyahu on the trip and that the prime minister had been received with “the honor of kings.”
The discord underscores a delicate balancing act, in which Abu Dhabi has doubled down on defense coordination with the US and Israel during the Iran conflict. Israel rushed over air defense systems used in its Iron Dome to the UAE during the war, according to the Financial Times. But Abu Dhabi still wants to maintain distance from Netanyahu’s far-right government and his policies that have mired the region in an expanding war.