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.

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.

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........

© The Times of Israel