Former PA minister details Sinwar’s pre-Oct. 7 warning to Israel of coming ‘earthquake’

Former Palestinian Authority minister Sufian Abu Zaida has given a detailed account of the prisoner-exchange negotiations held between Israel and Hamas for roughly a year and a half before the October 7, 2023, attack, culminating in a warning from then-Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar shortly before that attack that an “earthquake” was coming.

Abu Zaida’s account, given in an interview with the Egypt-based pan-Arab Alghad TV network, expands on revelations that he was the Palestinian intermediary who conveyed Sinwar’s warning to Israel as well as the United Arab Emirates, as first detailed in a Haaretz report earlier this month. That report said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was personally warned by the leader of the UAE that Hamas was planning a major offensive move against Israel, based on Sinwar’s comments to Abu Zaida, but that the premier sat on the information and did not update Israeli security leaders.

Netanyahu has denied that report, but an Emirati source familiar with the conversation confirmed it to The Times of Israel. Abu Zaida further corroborated details of that report.

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Abu Zaida said the channel was launched in mid-March 2022, when Hamas political bureau member Ghazi Hamad called him. The two already knew one another, he said, having first met while imprisoned by Israel in 1989 for their activities in Fatah and Hamas.

“He asked me to speak about the possibility of a prisoner exchange,” recalled Abu Zaida, who in the past served as the PA’s prisoners’ affairs minister.

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At the time, Hamas was holding Israeli civilians Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who had wandered into Gaza of their own accord, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers, Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul.

The pair met about a week later, according to Abu Zaida, who said Hamad told him that negotiations had made “no progress” for more than seven years. Before agreeing to become involved, Abu Zaida said he wanted confirmation that the approach had been authorized by Hamas’s leadership in Gaza.

“Do you have a mandate for this?” Abu Zaida recalled asking Hamad. According to Abu Zaida, Hamad replied: “Yes. I obtained approval from Abu Ibrahim Sinwar to speak with you and ask you to help with this matter,” referring to Sinwar by his nom de guerre.

The full interview can be watched here, with English subtitles:

Abu Zaida said he contacted a retired Shin Bet officer who had experience in negotiations and asked him to relay the proposition. Two days later, he said, the former officer told him that the message had been delivered and that Israeli officials would contact him. Abu Zaida subsequently met Israeli representatives, who sought to establish whether he was genuinely acting with Hamas’s authorization. He said he told them Hamad had assured him the mandate came from the group’s highest authority in Gaza.

In July 2022, Abu Zaida said, he met Sinwar himself and asked him to set out his priorities for a potential exchange. According to Abu Zaida, Sinwar described it as a “humanitarian deal” and listed categories including women, prisoners under 18, the sick and longtime inmates, as well as prisoners connected to the 2011 deal for the release of captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit who had since been rearrested.

Abu Zaida said then-Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar later wanted to meet him to hear Hamas’s terms. He recalled telling Bar that any agreement would need to take account of issues particularly important to Sinwar, including veteran prisoners and Israel’s refusal to release Palestinian security prisoners accused of killing Israelis.

According to Abu Zaida, Bar told him that successfully completing a deal could open the way to broader changes in Gaza, including additional permits for Palestinians to work in Israel and measures related to electricity, rehabilitation and reconstruction. Abu Zaida quoted Bar as telling him that, if an agreement were reached, “the sky’s the limit.”

Abu Zaida said he then updated Sinwar, Hamad and senior Hamas official Rawhi Mushtaha, telling them Israel had removed what he characterized as an obstacle concerning veteran prisoners. The contacts then moved on to what he called “serious negotiations,” including discussions about names and possible exchanges, although the process repeatedly stalled over the following year.

By September 2023, no agreement had been reached. Abu Zaida said Sinwar then asked him to convey a stark message to Israel: “Before the end of September, we will put the papers on the table that will cause an earthquake in the prisoner-exchange issue, and they must prepare themselves to empty the prisons.”

Abu Zaida said he checked with Sinwar that he genuinely wanted those exact words passed on. “Of course…word for word,” he recalled Sinwar answering. To avoid any misunderstanding, Abu Zaida said he transmitted the warning in both Arabic and Hebrew.

“Less than half an hour later they called me and said, ‘Are you sure that this is the message?’” he recalled. Abu Zaida said he confirmed it and was summoned to an urgent meeting at 9 a.m. the following day in Ashkelon. He said an official he identified as “Oscar,” whom he described as the southern district commander, and negotiating team chief Adi Rotem were among those present. According to Abu Zaida, he was told that members of the Israeli security team had not “slept that night.”

The Israeli officials wanted to know what Sinwar meant by the “papers” and the “earthquake,” Abu Zaida said, and whether the Hamas leader had appeared angry or agitated when he delivered the message. “I told them no, he was not agitated and not angry. He was completely calm,” Abu Zaida recalled.

Sinwar, meanwhile, wanted to know whether his warning had reached its intended recipients, Abu Zaida said. Because he did not have a direct communications channel with Sinwar, he said he informed Hamad and other Hamas officials that the message had been delivered. September ended without the promised “papers” appearing, he said, and the meaning of the threatened “earthquake” remained unclear.

Abu Zaida said he returned to Gaza on October 5 and was supposed to meet Sinwar on October 8. Instead, on October 7, Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages to Gaza.

The new account sheds further light on reporting in Haaretz by journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruti Yuval about the warning. Their investigation said Abu Zaida, who is close with former senior Fatah official Mohammed Dahlan — who lives in the UAE and is an adviser to UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed — passed the same message to the UAE leader. Bin Zayed interpreted the warning as indicating that Hamas could be preparing for war, and rushed to convey it personally to Netanyahu.

The Haaretz report had referred to Abu Zaida only by the pseudonym “Coal Eyes,” before Abu Zaida confirmed that it was he.

Abu Zaida said earlier this week that the talks had been nearing an agreement before October 7. He said the mediation was intended to prevent further deterioration in Gaza.

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