The October 2023 document, addressed to the Joint Operations Command of the UAE Forces, shows the Emiratis intended to use their military bases to support Israel.

A leaked official document has revealed that the UAE planned to use its military bases to “strengthen the State of Israel in its fight against terrorists in Palestine.”

The document, which was obtained and released by the website Emirates Leaks, has been making waves in anti-Israel media sites. The October 2023 document, addressed to the Joint Operations Command of the UAE Forces, shows the Emiratis intended to use their military bases in the southern Red Sea, including Yemen, Eritrea, and Somalia, to provide Israel with military, logistics, and intelligence aid for its war against Hamas.

The documents take an unequivocally pro-Israel tone. One section – a brief – covered “the start of the terrorists in Palestine launching attacks against the sister state of Israel.”

That same brief went on to reference the Abraham Accords, saying, “The United Arab Emirates and the State of Israel are linked by close cultural, diplomatic, economic, and security relations, and these relations have intensified since the historic agreement of 2020.”

The brief then confirmed that the UAE Joint Operations Command issued an order to support the State of Israel through military bases in the southern Red Sea region – al-Mokha on Yemen’s western coast, Massawa and Assab in Eritrea, and Berbera and Bassa in Somalia.

“Rapid preparation and mobilization of available capabilities” are needed “to supply our military bases in the southern Red Sea, particularly in Yemen, with everything required to support the State of Israel,” the brief read.

The documents confirmed that UAE military officials traveled to various bases to assess their suitability for supporting Israel.

UAE carried out investigations into Qatari support for Hamas

A later page in the document revealed that the UAE – soon after Hamas’s October 7 invasion – carried out “extensive investigations” into the “massive support provided by Qatar to Hamas.”

It found that the support provided by Qatar to the terrorist organization in the form of financial and logistical assistance was “very substantial,” and the support provided by Kuwait was “sufficient to hinder any of our movements along the southern Red Sea.

This, it continued, increased the likelihood of intervention by the Joint Operations Command of the UAE Forces, and consequently led to a “significant increase in expenditures.”

The documents proceed to refer to Kuwait as “among the parties hostile to [the UAE].”

Later, the text detailed high-level meetings among UAE military officials in October. For example, on October 19, Emirati Brig.-Gen. Saeed al-Marzooqi, assistant to the first commander of the Emirati forces in Yemen, met with Brig. Tareq Mohammed Abdullah Saleh of the Yemeni resistance in the headquarters of the base operations room in al-Mokha, Yemen.

During the meeting, the officers decided to open a communication channel between Yemen’s National Resistance Forces (NRF) and Israel. They also decided to allocate “all light and medium weapons” and prepare “them technically and logistically for transfer to Israel.”

Then, in an October 21 meeting in the Assab base in Eritrea, UAE generals decided to provide this army base “with all logistical support” and allocate “all sites on Dahlak Island and the Dahlak Archipelago for the purpose of supplying Israel.”

Included in this framework was “the airport for transporting supplies to Tel Aviv by helicopters, floating piers, and communication stations.”

They also decided, per the leaked documents, to transport 27 of their modern tanks stationed at the base to Tel Aviv via designated ships and to supply Israel with phosphorus missiles stored in the base’s warehouses.

Further, during an afternoon meeting on the Massawa base on October 21, a decision was made to secure intelligence support by reassigning the mission of the operations room, which had been monitoring the movements of al-Islah/Muslim Brotherhood elements along the western coast, to instead serve intelligence support for Israel.

The UAE also requested assistance from the private US intelligence company Stratfor, which maintains an honorary office at the base. A Stratfor representative, Ryan Paul, was present at the meeting.

The documents assert that all support to Israel would continue “until the terrorists in Palestine are defeated.”

Commenting on the documents, Emirati Leaks said they reveal “an unprecedented level of direct Emirati military involvement in supporting Israel during its war on Gaza, using a network of bases that spans one of the world’s most important sea lanes.”