Netanyahu aide to face indictment in leaked documents case

Forces are arrayed along political lines in the leaked documents case involving the Prime Minister’s Office, with its supporters sharply challenging the accusation that one of its staff endangered state security by passing classified secrets to the press, while the State Attorney’s Office promises indictments.

The story took a shocking twist on Monday when a noose was found in the prison cell of the chief suspect, Eliezer Feldstein, a military affairs spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Office. He was immediately transferred to “a suicide prevention observation cell,” the Israel Prison Service said.

On Sunday, the State Attorney’s Office notified the Rishon Letzion Magistrate’s Court that it intends to bring charges against Feldstein and a second suspect, a noncommissioned officer in the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate, whose name has not been released.

Feldstein, who was to have been remanded to house arrest, found his detention extended for five additional days by the court on Monday.

The second suspect also had his detention extended. He is said to have provided Feldstein with the classified documents, which Feldstein then leaked to the foreign press.

Two officers in the reserves and one active-duty NCO also are under arrest. Four of the five served in a classified unit whose purpose is to prevent leaks and guard security secrets, Ynet reported.

The state prosecutor submitted a statement to the court on Sunday charging Feldstein and the second suspect with serious crimes, including providing secret information with the intention of damaging state security, an offense carrying a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

Feldstein is accused of leaking a classified document to German newspaper Bild, to reduce public criticism directed at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the IDF discovered the bodies of six hostages murdered by Hamas in the Gaza Strip in late August.

That document became the basis of a Sept. 6 Bild story saying Hamas wasn’t interested in a hostages-for-ceasefire deal, but wanted to drag out talks to gain time to rebuild its military capabilities, “exhaust” Israel’s military, and “exert psychological pressure” on the hostages’ families and consequently the Israeli government.

Bild said the document, dating from spring 2024, was found on a computer said to belong to Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, “who personally approved the content.” Israeli military sources later disputed that, saying the document was on a computer belonging to a mid-level Hamas commander.

Netanyahu referred to the Bild story in a Sept. 8 Cabinet meeting, saying it revealed that Hamas planned “to tear us part from within” but “the great majority of Israel’s citizens are not falling into this Hamas trap.”

Opponents of the prime minister, including some hostages’ families, accused Netanyahu of purposely leaking the document to torpedo a hostages-for-ceasefire-and-terrorists deal in order to pursue his war aims and his political survival.

Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan was kidnapped by Hamas from Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, 2023, and who has become one of Netanyahu’s most vocal critics, said on Sunday in response to the new details released by the court that Netanyahu “stuck a knife in the hostages’ backs. … Instead of ending the war and saving those who have been abandoned by him for over a year, Netanyahu is sacrificing them for criminal personal considerations.”

Netanyahu’s office has denied the premier initiated the alleged leak, saying he learned of it from the media. His office also defended Feldstein, though without naming him, saying the suspect had never been exposed to classified material.

Netanyahu’s office also stated that the document’s release didn’t compromise the effort to free the hostages but helped it by exposing Hamas’s methods of applying psychological pressure by blaming Israel for the failure of talks, “when everyone knows—as has been confirmed repeatedly by U.S. officials—that Hamas is preventing the deal.”

On Monday, in a speech before the Knesset, Netanyahu reiterated that it wasn’t Israel but Hamas blocking a deal, and the Americans, who “know every detail” of the talks, say the same thing.

The Biden administration has said on several occasions, including in June and September, that the only obstacle to a deal is Hamas.

“The biggest obstacle to getting a ceasefire deal is Hamas,” said White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby on Sept. 5. “They took the damn hostages in the first place.”

Netanyahu’s supporters have depicted the investigation as a deep state effort to topple the government. Yaakov Bardugo, a commentator close to Netanyahu, said on Nov. 3 that the Shin Bet and the IDF are trying to use their investigative powers to “overturn the government.”

The Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement that it was “interesting” that while the leak implicating Netanyahu’s team was being investigated, “dozens of leaks” from the hostage negotiations and classified Cabinet meetings had not been.

When on Nov. 5, the Israel Police announced a second investigation into the Prime Minister’s Office having to do with alleged attempts by Netanyahu officials to alter official transcripts of Cabinet discussions and other government meetings, the Prime Minister’s Office took a sharper tone.

In a second statement on Nov. 5, it said: “After a year in which there has been a flood of criminal leaks from Security Cabinet discussions and discussions regarding the hostages and the missing, which have provided our enemies with highly valuable intelligence, the only two investigations that have been opened are directed against the Prime Minister’s Office.”

No probes were brought “against the wholesale leakers … who have greatly damaged the hostages and the security of Israel,” Netanyahu’s office said.

The investigation’s critics also question the harsh treatment of the detainees. Attorney Ephraim Damri, who represents one of the suspects, told Channel 14 on Monday that his client, a decorated IDF major, well-respected for his contributions in the intelligence community, was confined to a windowless cell and denied a lawyer for 10 days.

When Damri finally saw his client, the latter was led to him in handcuffs, leg irons and a blindfold. The first thing his client said to him when they were removed: “I would rather die than live.”

Appearing on Channel 14’s nightly political talk show “The Patriots” on Sunday night, Feldstein’s wife, Avital, and her mother, Tehila, said they hadn’t made a public statement until then out of fear.

Avital said exactly three weeks ago at 5 a.m., “Three masked people with large guns broke into our house, into the bedroom.” At first, she thought they were terrorists.

Tehila said her son-in-law wasn’t political. He is the most “normative, mainstream person. This man has been in the [IDF] reserves for 10 years. The most patriotic there is.”

They said what was happening was beyond their comprehension. “He has a two-and-a-half-year-old baby at home. Why is he buried there? Why isn’t he under house arrest at least?” she asked.

“We are caught in something unrelated to him. He is a political victim. There is no other explanation for it,” she said.