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As Israelis prepare to vote next month, the question of who bears responsibility for failing to prevent the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023, has become a dominant issue in one of Israel’s most consequential campaigns in history.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, seeking an unprecedented seventh term, has placed the blame on national security officials, while his critics have said he must personally answer for the failures. When Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, reported earlier this month that Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed, president of the United Arab Emirates, had given Netanyahu a secret warning that Hamas was planning a major attack, the question took on even greater urgency.

Netanyahu has denied the report.

But a person who said they had spoken with Sheikh Mohammed and another person who said they had been briefed by someone on the call between the two leaders told the New York Times that the Emirati leader had secretly reported to Netanyahu that Hamas was considering a major attack.

The warning from the Emirati leader, however, never reached the leaders of Israel’s security establishment, according to five former senior Israeli officials. Netanyahu gathered his security chiefs days later, on Oct. 1, 2023, for a meeting about the situation in the Gaza Strip, and never mentioned the warning, according to minutes of the meeting reviewed by the Times.

Instead, he told them that the goal should be to maintain calm in Gaza, and he pushed back when some security officials said that Israel should consider military strikes against senior Hamas leaders in Gaza who were overseeing attacks against Israelis in the West Bank, the minutes show.

At the meeting, details of which have not been previously reported, Netanyahu said that any Israeli action in Gaza might sabotage the prospect of Saudi Arabia establishing diplomatic relations with Israel — a deal the Israeli prime minister believed was imminent.

Sheikh Mohammed had called Netanyahu in late September to tell him that, based on information he had received, Hamas was planning to launch an attack, according to the two people who said they had spoken with someone on the call. One of those people said the information was not specific about whether Hamas was planning to launch rockets into Israel or preparing for a ground invasion over the border. The original sources of the intelligence that Sheikh Mohammed passed to Netanyahu are unclear, and it is also unclear whether other issues were discussed on their call.

The warning, though vague, proved to be correct. Days later, thousands of Hamas fighters and their allies launched an invasion over the Gaza border into southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking some 250 more hostage in the deadliest attack on Israel in the country’s history.

After the Haaretz report, Netanyahu denied in a statement that he had ever received a phone call warning from Sheikh Mohammed and said that if any intelligence came from the Emiratis it was passed to Israel through intelligence channels.

The Emirati Foreign Ministry and Netanyahu’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

But Sheikh Mohammed mentioned his September 2023 phone call with Netanyahu months later in a discussion with William Burns, the CIA director at the time, according to a person familiar with that discussion. Sheikh Mohammed told Burns that, during the phone call, he had spoken to Netanyahu about a looming threat of violence in the West Bank or Gaza carried out by Hamas.

All of the people the New York Times spoke to insisted on anonymity to divulge details of sensitive discussions.

Netanyahu was not the only Israeli leader to overlook warning signs in the lead-up to the Hamas-led attack Oct. 7, 2023. Israeli security leaders repeatedly downplayed other signs that Hamas was gearing up for an assault, which were abundant at the time.

The Israeli military even obtained a Hamas battle plan in 2022, but military leaders dismissed it as unrealistic. The plan, which the military gave the code name “Jericho Wall,” turned out to be the blueprint for the Oct. 7 attacks.

In the years before the attacks, Israeli military and intelligence officials had concluded that Hamas was incapable of carrying out a major attack on Israel, and that Yahya Sinwar, the group’s leader in Gaza, was more interested in governing the enclave than fighting another war with Israel.

Netanyahu thought that Israel had deterred Hamas from waging war, according to an Israeli state ombudsperson report about government decision-making before the October attack. He instructed Israeli military and intelligence bodies to pursue a policy of “postponing conflicts” and “preserving Hamas as an effective, restrained, and restraining governing authority,” the report said.

The phone call and the warning from Sheikh Mohammed are not mentioned in any of the internal investigations conducted by the military, intelligence agencies, or other entities into the causes of the severe Israeli security failures leading up to and including Oct. 7, according to the five former senior Israeli officials. The five officials were involved in the assessments, which have not been released in full.

Late next month, Israelis will vote in their first national election since the Oct. 7 attacks, and the race for parliamentary seats in the highly polarized country is shaping up to be extremely tight. Not only is Netanyahu’s political future at stake, but many Israelis also see the election as fateful for the future of their shaken country.

The Haaretz report punched a hole in Netanyahu’s argument that Israel’s military and intelligence services were to blame for the intelligence failures leading to the Oct. 7 attacks. He and his allies have blocked efforts by Israeli lawmakers to set up a state commission of inquiry into the security breakdowns that preceded the attacks, saying it would not uncover the truth.

Earlier this month, Netanyahu’s opponents in the campaign issued a joint statement saying that the Haaretz report about the September 2023 warning “joins a series of revelations concerning Netanyahu’s failures” and “once again underscores why Netanyahu is fighting for his life — to thwart the establishment of a state commission of inquiry and to thwart revealing the truth to the Israeli public.”

This article originally appeared in the New York Times.

France will send troops and other military assets to Saudi Arabia to help protect critical energy sites along the Red Sea that have come under fire from the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen, the French president said Thursday.

France will send “soldiers, radars, and defense systems” to help secure energy infrastructure in the coastal city of Yanbu, according to an agreement the two countries sealed Thursday, President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview on public broadcaster France 2. “Not to engage in any conflicts but to protect this site,” Macron said.

He did not rule out the possibility that additional military assistance might be provided as the situation evolves.

Macron framed the move as one part of efforts that France is making to ensure energy security and fight for lower gas prices at home amid the war started by the United States and Israel with Iran more than six months ago. That conflict has left the Strait of Hormuz, a key international waterway for oil and gas, effectively blockaded.

In recent weeks, the Iran-allied Houthi militia has repeatedly attacked Saudi Arabia, threatening its ability to export oil from Red Sea ports. The French president’s pledge came after what appeared to be one of the largest such attacks since the long-running conflict spiraled back into war.

The Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen said Thursday that it had shot down six ballistic missiles aimed at Yanbu and Taif, another Saudi city. Saudi authorities issued alerts Thursday warning of potential attacks in cities across the kingdom.

For more than a decade, Yemen’s civil war has pitted the Houthis, a Shiite Muslim group aligned with Iran, against the internationally recognized government backed by Saudi Arabia. A truce was reached in 2022, but the conflict recently reignited, opening a second front in the Middle East after the United States and Israel attacked Iran. The Houthis have accused the Saudis of launching hundreds of strikes in the renewed fighting.

The Houthis captured the strategic port of Mokha from the Saudi-backed government earlier this month, giving them control of Yemen’s west coast and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, a route that Saudi Arabia has relied on to move oil while the Strait of Hormuz is choked.

This article originally appeared in the New York Times.

The most effective escalation of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign happened quietly.

Unlike earlier high-profile raids that drew thousands of protesters into the streets of Chicago, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis, the surge in arrests in June, July, and August was captured mostly by grainy security camera footage, through cracked blinds, and from behind closed doors.

Arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement this summer soared to record highs since the start of this Trump administration — with 43,000 in June, more than 49,000 in July, and nearly 51,000 in August — as officials cut or narrowed the pathways to legal residency in the United States and expanded the pool of people eligible for deportation.

Federal agents appeared in nearly every corner of daily life, carrying out operations at hospitals and airports, outside suburban schools and along rural construction sites and truck stops. They fanned out from coastal cities in Maine to desert towns in Arizona, across the open plains of Wyoming and down through the southern borderlands.

In Republican-led states like Texas and Florida, where the swell was strongest, they amplified their reach through partnerships with sheriffs and state highway patrol officers. In Democratic strongholds, they intensified their activities despite laws meant to restrict them.

David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said the local partnerships, an infusion of federal dollars, and new technology had made the dragnet so decentralized that it had attracted less attention.

“This gradual rise everywhere all at once, through a lot of means, is enabling the operation to fly under the radar,” he said.

The spike in arrests, to little public backlash, reflects a turning point in the Trump administration’s efforts to carry out large-scale expulsions of noncitizens. Those arrested were accused of violating civil immigration laws, but most had not been charged with or convicted of a crime. In a statement, ICE defended the expansion of immigration enforcement.

“This is promises made and promises kept in action,” the statement read. “The results speak for themselves.”

To understand how the operations have unfolded around the country, the New York Times reviewed arrest videos, photographs, and court records from more than 50 incidents. What follows is a sampling of those interactions.

A presence in routine places

Federal agents appeared as people carried out their everyday routines. People were detained en route to a soccer match. Leaving Sunday Mass. Having a drink at a nightclub. At national forests and outside polling locations.

Roger Hansen, 83, owner of the Little Big Load Laundromat in Madison, Wis., said federal immigration agents took five people from two of his locations in June. Statewide sweeps the same day resulted in the arrests of roughly 40 people, many of whom Department of Homeland Security officials said had criminal charges for sexual assault, driving while intoxicated, and other crimes.

Security footage from one of Hansen’s laundromats shows two agents slamming a young customer to the ground near a soap dispenser. All the while, people continue to do laundry.

Outside, bystanders recorded the man being walked out in handcuffs and loaded into an SUV with dark-tinted windows.

Hansen said he was disturbed by the violence. “They were having a heyday beating up on a kid,” he said, adding that business had dropped roughly 50% the next day and had not recovered. He said he believed many of his Latino and immigrant clientele may be too afraid to return.

In a statement, ICE said the arrests at the laundromat had been part of “targeted operations” in Wisconsin at the end of June. The five people from Nicaragua and Mexico were in the country illegally, ICE said. The agency did not respond to a question about their criminal records.

On July 7 in Salt Lake City, Elizabeth Garcia recorded three ICE agents forcing their way into her home without showing a warrant after following her father, Raul Moreno Meza, 52, from a gas station.

In the video, agents handcuff Moreno and his 15-year-old son, a U.S. citizen. Garcia howls and pleads as agents carry her father outside to their vehicles. Her 2-year-old can be heard crying in the background.

Before departing, an agent removed the shackles from Moreno’s son, who chased the SUVs as they drove away. Moreno was later released on bond, his daughter said, but her brother has become withdrawn and is attending therapy.

“He had lots of goals and intentions,” she said. “Now he is so negative.”

In a statement, ICE said officers arrested Moreno after he did not yield to officers at a traffic stop and then fled on foot. The agency alleged in the statement that “a juvenile occupant of Moreno’s vehicle” had assaulted an officer and was “detained in handcuffs for safety.”

Moreno, who is Mexican, crossed the border unlawfully about two decades ago, after his green card petition languished in delays and as his father, a naturalized U.S. citizen, fell ill, his family said. His father later died. Because Moreno’s green card petition was tied to his father’s citizenship, the application did not advance after the death, the family said.

All corners of the country

Immigration arrests climbed to near record highs in almost every state. Some of the sharpest percentage increases in daily arrests occurred in Oregon, Montana, Hawaii, New Mexico, Vermont, and New Jersey.

In June, the dragnet came to Harrison, N.J., where Asian and Hispanic residents account for about 65% of the population.

Tugrul Ozkarsli, 33, of Turkey, had just pulled up to his home with groceries when ICE agents in plain clothes boxed his vehicle in with their SUVs, his wife, Kendra Ozkarsli, 46, said. He honked his horn and called her from his phone.

“All I hear is him screaming,” Kendra Ozkarsli recalled. She ran downstairs to find agents pulling him out of the vehicle.

“I’m married!” Tugrul Ozkarsli yelled as agents handcuffed him.

“What are you doing? What are you doing?” Kendra Ozkarsli repeated, her hands shaking as she recorded with her phone. “This is my husband! Please stop!”

Tugrul Ozkarsli had entered the United States legally on a business visa in December 2024. Before it expired, he applied for a student visa, which is still pending, Kendra Ozkarsli said. ICE said the pending application did not give him legal status.

The agency also said he had been arrested on burglary charges in New York last year. Kendra Ozkarsli said he was arrested after he entered the apartment of a woman he was dating at the time to retrieve his wallet and passport, prompting the woman to call the police. The charges were ultimately sealed and dismissed, she said.

Tugrul and Kendra Ozkarsli had married this summer, and he had been preparing to apply for a green card, she said.

From roads to airports

Traffic stops were central to the summer surge. Some were deadly. In Houston and Biddeford, Maine, traffic stops ended in fatal shootings involving officers. An encounter between people in a vehicle and agents at a Florida gas station resulted in a fatal car crash.

In Milwaukee, Frankely Quezada, 34, and Estenderly Marte Polanco, 31, of the Dominican Republic, were running errands with their 7-year-old son on a Saturday morning in June. Near home, Quezada said, he noticed an unmarked SUV trailing his van. He turned into an alley and accelerated.

The vehicle behind him flashed its lights, and as Quezada crossed the street, more SUVs emerged to box him in. Federal agents jumped out, and one of them pointed a yellow stun gun at him and shattered his window, Quezada recalled. From a balcony, a neighbor filmed officers dragging Polanco out as her son cried.

Quezada, who was not arrested, said Polanco bit a federal agent as they drove her away after he shoved her face into her lap so forcefully she believed she would suffocate. Polanco, who overstayed a visa and has no other criminal record, remains held without bond in Kansas.

In response to questions about Polanco’s arrest, ICE said in a statement that both Quezada and Polanco had been combative and refused to obey commands and that Polanco would remain in custody as her case moves through immigration proceedings.

ICE also stepped up its arrests of foreign citizens at airports in July, in encounters that could be more surreptitious. Footage recorded by an airline manager July 13 captured two ICE officers in plain clothes approaching a gate agent at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport before a flight to Portland, Ore. They identified themselves only as federal officers and instructed the employee to page a passenger.

Flanking the woman, the men discreetly took her into custody, according to the manager, who asked not to be identified, citing concerns for her job. The worker followed them, recording as they escorted the passenger through the concourse, one of them wheeling her luggage.

In the parking lot, the woman was handcuffed and put into an unmarked vehicle.

ICE agents told the manager that the woman was being detained because she had overstayed her visa. U.S. authorities did not share her name with the Times or provide information about her whereabouts.

No more protected areas

During the summer surge, displays of force were routine inside some courthouses, and federal agents have increasingly been spotted at and near hospitals and schools.

ICE acknowledged operating in courthouses but said officers did not target schools.

“Nothing in the Constitution prohibits arresting a lawbreaker where you find them,” the agency said in a statement. “The ability of law enforcement to make arrests of criminal illegal aliens in courthouses is common sense. It conserves valuable law enforcement resources because they already know where a target will be.”

On the morning of Aug. 20, Grace Calero, 39, and her daughter, Giulianna Carriel, 19, were rushed to a hospital after a car crash south of Orlando, Fla. As medical staff treated them for injuries, a federal agent entered the emergency ward and began questioning Grace’s sister, Gia Calero, about the women’s immigration status, the sister said.

He remained in the room, joking with nurses.

It wasn’t until hours later, after Grace’s neck brace was removed, that the officer announced he was with ICE, Gia said. In the dramatic scene, captured by Gia on her cell phone, five deputies with the Polk County Sheriff’s Office arrived. They handcuffed Grace as Giulianna wailed on a bed, clinging to her mother and begging them not to take her.

“They didn’t even let them recover,” Gia Calero said.

In statements, ICE and Polk County sheriff’s officials said the women had overstayed their visas. Gia said her sister and niece had pending asylum claims, stemming from attempted kidnappings in Ecuador. The two have since been deported to their native country.

This article originally appeared in the New York Times.