Former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Sunday that Israel received a significant warning from Hamas ahead of the terror group’s October 7, 2023, attack, but security officials interpreted it as a reference to a potential prisoner exchange rather than an indication that Hamas was preparing an assault.

In an interview with Army Radio, Gallant said Hamas sources delivered a message to the Shin Bet in September 2023 stating that then-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar “will cause the prisons to quake.” According to Gallant, this was the only warning of its kind that reached Israel’s domestic security agency before October 7.

Gallant said Israeli intelligence officials believed the message was connected to a possible deal involving Elizabeth Tsurkov, an Israeli-Russian researcher who had been abducted earlier that year by a Shiite militia in Iraq.

He also said he had not known at the time about reports that the United Arab Emirates had warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, followed by a separate warning from Egypt. Gallant said he first learned about those alleged warnings through recent media reports.

“I heard about these warnings for the first time from the media,” he said, adding that if the reports were accurate and the information was not shared with the security establishment, it would amount to “a very serious flaw in the overall assessment.”

“If the prime minister receives a warning from the leader of a country, it is not his political asset; it is a security asset of the security establishment,” Gallant said. He maintained that such information might have influenced how senior defense officials assessed the situation in the days immediately preceding the attack.

Gallant specifically referred to security discussions led by then-IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi on October 6 and 7. He said that had Halevi known Netanyahu had previously received such a warning, the information could have changed his interpretation of intelligence and other indications emerging at the time.

According to Gallant, senior Israeli officials participated in repeated security assessments during the weeks before the attack, including discussions focused on Iran. He said he did not remember Netanyahu telling those meetings that he had received a warning concerning Hamas.

Gallant additionally said that no Egyptian warning had been brought to his attention before October 7. “It was not said; not to me, not to the chief of staff, and in my opinion not to the head of the Shin Bet either,” he said.

He said that during the subsequent war, there were occasions when he became aware of sensitive communications involving Netanyahu only after American officials contacted him to confirm what the prime minister had told them. Gallant said the Americans had limited confidence in Netanyahu’s account, and that he later sought clarification directly from the prime minister. He added that he had received neither a written nor verbal briefing about those matters beforehand.

Gallant’s comments followed statements by former Palestinian Authority minister Sufian Abu Zaida, who said he personally passed Sinwar’s “earthquake” warning to Shin Bet officials in September 2023. Abu Zaida said he delivered the message in both Arabic and Hebrew and was called to an urgent meeting with Israeli security officials the next morning. He said officials questioned him about the meaning of Sinwar’s message and told him that members of the security team had [not “slept that night.”]

Meanwhile, Channel 12 reported earlier in the week that UAE intelligence officials had also warned the Shin Bet in September 2023 that Hamas might undertake violent action before the end of that month.

According to the report, the Emirati warning closely matched information that had separately come from Sinwar. Israeli officials involved in evaluating the Shin Bet intelligence, however, reportedly interpreted Sinwar’s message in light of information suggesting Hamas could become involved in efforts to secure Tsurkov’s release, rather than viewing it as an indication that a major attack was imminent.

Channel 12 first reported Sinwar’s warning in 2024. Reports concerning a telephone conversation between UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed and Netanyahu surfaced only in recent weeks following a Haaretz investigation. An Emirati source later confirmed the reported call to The Times of Israel, while Netanyahu has denied that such a conversation occurred.