Are alleged leaks from the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office to foreign media outlets sympathetic to Israel endangering soldiers and hostages? And were they used to serve the interests of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?
These leaks are under investigation right now.
Investigators are trying to determine whether the theft of classified intelligence documents from army databases for sources in the Prime Minister’s Office was “systematic,” the Times of Israel reports. An unnamed government official was cited on Israel’s Channel 12 as saying that one such document published in the foreign media is presenting “ongoing” danger to soldiers and hostages in Gaza.
Five people including four soldiers have been arrested. So far, one suspect has been named: Eli Feldstein who worked in the PMO office as a spokesman. Netanyahu is not a suspect.
Speaking of leaks, Hebrew media outlets reported that the four soldiers arrested serve in an intelligence unit tasked with preventing leaks. One was released on Sunday one report said. The charges against Feldstein include suspicion of divulging top-secret information with national security implications to European media outlets.
Feldstein, a spokesperson in the Prime Minister’s Office, is accused of illegally obtaining classified intelligence from defense officials, “the contents of which reached foreign media outlets in a way that served the interests of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.” Feldstein was also formerly the spokesman for the firebrand, far-right Knesset Member Itamar Ben Gvir.
WHY LEAKS TO FOREIGN MEDIA?
This type of information wouldn’t have passed Israel’s military censors for local media.
WHAT WERE THESE REPORTS AND WHAT CAME OF THEM?
The documents leaked were said to have been penned by Hamas. One says that the terror group’s strategy is to release psychological warfare videos of the hostages in order to stir up demonstrations by the hostages’ families to pressure the government into a ceasefire. Netanyahu noted this saying that demonstrators are “falling into Hamas’ trap.”
One of the articles, in the German outlet BILD, reported that a Hamas document found by the IDF in Gaza indicated that the terror group’s main reason for wanting a ceasefire was to renew its military capabilities.
However, the leaked document cited by BILD was not found by IDF soldiers in Gaza as previously believed, but was uncovered through “another type of intelligence,” according to an Israeli outlet, Kan.
Another article—this one in the Jewish Chronicle based in London—was later discredited and withdrawn entirely. This article claimed a document uncovered by the IDF in Gaza showed that the now-room-temperature former leader of Hamas, Yehiya Sinwar, had planned to spirit himself and hostages out of Gaza through Egypt. Almost every Israeli media outlet repeated the report after it was published.
At the time, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari denied that the army had any knowledge of that.
However, Netanyahu referenced this article, including in cabinet meetings, using this information to bolster his argument that Israel needed to remain in control of the Philadelphia corridor and that only military pressure—rather than a deal—would lead to a release of the hostages.
The timing was critical as well. Both articles were published days after six Israeli hostages had been executed and so the country already emotionally raw.
The Channel 12 report quoted a source who noted that it wasn’t just about leaked information but that “manipulative and dangerous use was made of it.”
There is a second investigation into the PMO now, this one looking at crimes including public corruption and “criminal incidents” from the start of the war in Gaza. The case is largely under a gag order.
For his part, Netanyahu has not been linked to the leaks. But the prime minister has demanded an investigation into Cabinet leaks, which he says have been going on since the beginning of the war.