Netanyahu aide charged for leaking secret documents, accused of sabotaging hostage deal
An aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is accused of leaking sensitive information to two news outlets in the hopes of sabotaging a hostage deal with Hamas in a political scandal that has roiled Israeli politics.
An illegal removal of military-related "classified and sensitive intelligence information" could have caused "serious damage to the state's security and posed a risk to information sources" and frustrated possibilities of a deal to release the hostages still believed to be in Hamas captivity, a judge wrote in the ruling.
Court documents obtained by the Times of Israel identified Eli Feldstein, a spokesperson for Netanyahu, as one of the officials accused of leaking top-secret information. The names of three other Israeli defense officials who are suspects in the case have not yet been revealed.
The information was leaked to the Jewish Chronicle and the German Bild newspaper.
Bild's exclusive article based on the leak reported that a document "from Hamas' military intelligence" shows Hamas is "manipulating the international community, torturing the hostage families and seeking to rearm," and are "just as indifferent to a quick end to the war as they are to the suffering of Palestinian civilians."
The Jewish Chronicle reported that former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, since killed in an Israeli strike, planned to "smuggle himself and the remaining Hamas leaders along with Israeli hostages through the Philadelphi corridor," which connects Gaza to Egypt, and on to Iran.
But questions later arose about the truth of the documents. And their publication overlapped closely with a talking point pressed by Netanyahu at the time – that Israel needed to hold the Philadelphi corridor to secure a deal.
Netanyahu referenced Bild's article in early September, saying it revealed Hamas' "action plan: To sow discord among us, to use psychological warfare on the hostages' families, to apply internal and external political pressure on the Government of Israel, to tear us [a]part from within, and to continue the war until further notice, until Israel is defeated."
"Hamas consistently refuses to make a deal," he said in a Fox News appearance in September. "The report that there's a deal out there that the only thing holding it up is the Philadelphi tunnel is not merely not true, it's just a direct falsehood."
The Jewish Chronicle later fired Elon Perry, the freelancer who wrote the article, and removed all his articles from its site after a "thorough investigation."
"Obviously, it’s every newspaper editor’s worst nightmare to be deceived by a journalist," Jewish Chronicle editor Jake Wallis Simons said in a post to X. "Readers can be assured that stronger internal procedures are being implemented."
Israel's military later said it could not confirm reports that Hamas sought to smuggle hostages into Egypt, and Daniel Hagari, its spokesperson, cast doubt on their accuracy when questioned by Israeli media.
Pressure mounts in Israel for hostage deal
The articles were published days after six Israeli hostages were found dead in a tunnel in Gaza, sparking Israeli protests and outrage at Netanyahu, who the families of some hostages see as sabotaging a cease-fire deal for his own political gain.
Hamas kidnapped more than 200 Israelis and killed 1,200 others last Oct. 7, when the militant group's fighters overran the border with Gaza in a surprise attack. Since then, Israel has launched an air and ground siege of Gaza that has killed more than 43,000 people, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, and given way to a humanitarian crisis as famine and disease spread throughout the enclave.
More than 100 of the hostages have been released – most as part of a cease-fire deal last November, and some freed in Israeli military operations. But around 100 hostages remain in Gaza as the conflict grinds on.
"These people have been living on a rollercoaster of rumors and half truths," Dana Pugach, a lawyer for some hostage families, told Reuters on Saturday.
"For the last year they have been waiting to hear any intelligence or any information about negotiations for the release of those hostages," she said. "If some of that information had been stolen from army sources then we think that the families have the right to learn about any relevant detail."
Contributing: Reuters