Israeli Police have arrested one of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s top aides, disclosed to US media.
The aide and three other Israeli intelligence officers are suspected of leaking classified information to foreign media.
According to the TV channel, one of the suspects in the case is Eliezer Feldstein, who worked for a long time in the press service of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and in December 2022 became Netanyahu’s assistant for working with military correspondents.
Details of the investigation became known after the Rishon LeZion Magistrates’ Court ruled to lift the ban on disclosing information about the case.
The ruling stated that “secret and sensitive intelligence information was taken from IDF systems and seized illegally,” which could ultimately cause “serious damage to national security.”
Four defendants in the case are suspected of disclosing classified information to the British publication The Jewish Chronicle and the German Bild.
Both newspapers published materials in September that described Hamas’s intention to secretly transport Israeli hostages from Gaza to Egypt, as well as to divide Israeli society by accusing the prime minister and his supporters of disrupting peace talks and the hostage-release process. Both publications cited sources in Israeli intelligence services.
The theses presented in the articles are very reminiscent of the words of Netanyahu himself at a press conference on September 2, a couple of days after six dead Israelis were found in a tunnel in Gaza.
There, as Netanyahu stated then, a Hamas document was found about the planned transfer of hostages to Egypt and pressure on Israeli society.
Opposition leader in the Knesset Yair Lapid said yesterday, November 3, that the document itself, allegedly found in the tunnels, was a forgery, and that the information given to Western publications was an attempt by the Prime Minister’s Office “to sabotage the possibility of a hostage deal and to turn public opinion against the families of the hostages.”
The Israeli prime minister’s office denies any involvement in the leak of classified information.
Netanyahu himself said he learned of the leak only from media reports over the weekend.
