Netanyahu’s ex-aide says PM was ‘behind’ leak of intel to Bild and lied about it after

[ad_1] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the one behind the leak of labeled intelligence geared toward swaying the Israeli public’s opinion concerning ongoing hostage negotiations final yr, his beleaguered former spokesperson Eli Feldstein alleged on Tuesday.

“With a purpose to [publicize] such a doc, the prime minister should be within the image – from starting to finish,” Feldstein stated in an interview with the Kan public broadcaster.

Within the second portion of a three-part collection, Feldstein went additional than he did within the first interview that aired on Monday, when he solely claimed that Netanyahu was conscious and supportive of the labeled intel leak to the Bild German day by day.

“He (Netanyahu) is the one who in the end was behind the leak,” Feldstein stated emphatically, including that he instructed interrogators the identical factor repeatedly after his arrest and eventual indictment over the matter.

The doc in query was an inside Hamas memo purporting to indicate that the fear group wasn’t within the compromises mandatory to achieve a hostage deal. After it was leaked to the Bild, Netanyahu used it to argue that solely additional navy strain would result in the discharge of the hostages.

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By signing up, you comply with the terms Nevertheless, it was later revealed in media stories that Bild had severely distorted the file to serve the pursuits of the Netanyahu authorities.

Bild’s September 6, 2024, story citing a doc ostensibly discovered by the IDF on slain Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar’s pc. The doc was branded as labeled by the IDF, making it prohibited for publication by Israel’s navy censor, amid concern that an intelligence supply in Gaza could possibly be endangered by its launch.

With a purpose to publish the doc anyway, Feldstein leaked it to a world information outlet, provided that overseas media isn’t beholden to Israel’s navy censor. The tactic is, in reality, used fairly repeatedly by Israeli authorities and safety officers.

Nonetheless, he insisted within the Kan interview that Netanyahu was conscious of the technique and that it couldn’t have been pulled off with out his involvement, given the sensitivity of the doc in query.

Feldstein stated that after the story was printed within the Bild in early September 2024, Netanyahu’s prime adviser Jonathan Urich texted him the next message: “The boss (Netanyahu) is thrilled.”

A smoking gun in opposition to Netanyahu? Shortly thereafter, the three of them held a convention name throughout which Feldstein stated Netanyahu thanked him for his work on the matter.

The trio then mentioned how they'd reply to a question that they themselves would see to it that Channel 12 would undergo the Prime Minister’s Workplace: Did the military inform Netanyahu of the existence of this Hamas memo?

A graphic illustrating a confeence name held by (R-L) Jonathan Urich, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Eli Feldstein, as a part of a section aired on the Kan public broadcaster on December 23, 2025. (Display screen seize/Kan public broadcaster) The purpose of the question was to permit Netanyahu to push the narrative that the IDF was hiding info from the political echelon, as this is able to bolster the argument that the premier wasn’t accountable for Hamas’s October 7 onslaught — a message he was intent on advancing.

Within the first portion of his interview that aired on Monday, Feldstein revealed how Netanyahu was hyper-focused on combating media narratives that have been crucial of his conduct and had directed his aides to restrict public chatter about him being “accountable” for Hamas’s October 7 onslaught.

In the course of the convention name shortly after the Bild leak, the three agreed that Netanyahu’s workplace would insist – falsely – that the premier had not heard concerning the doc from the military and solely realized about it from the media, Feldstein instructed Kan.

Feldstein, Urich, and a detailed adviser to the premier, Yisrael (Srulik) Einhorn, are all being criminally investigated in reference to the leak of stolen labeled intelligence within the so-called Bild case.

Feldstein was arrested in October 2024 and later charged with leaking stolen intelligence to Bild the earlier month.

He has been indicted together with navy intelligence reservist Ari Rosenfeld, who was the supply inside the IDF that handed over the labeled doc.

Aaron ‘Ari’ Rosenfeld, one of many suspects within the Prime Minister’s Workplace labeled paperwork leak case arrives to the courtroom on the Tel Aviv District Courtroom on January 7, 2025. (Koko/Flash90) Netanyahu himself will not be a suspect within the probe, although he might nicely develop into one if Feldstein’s assertions concerning the prime minister’s involvement are confirmed correct.

Whereas Urich has presupposed to don't have any information of any felony wrongdoing, Feldstein instructed Kan that Urich “knew every part that I knew… The place [the document] got here from, why it wasn’t put out in Israel, all of it.”

“Learn all my texts [with Urich]. I don’t conceal something,” Feldstein instructed Kan. “Aside from asking him if I can go pee, he [was behind] every part.”

The ex-spokesman stated he's sure that, by the eve of the labeled doc’s publication within the Bild, Urich had knowledgeable the premier of the plan to leak it.

The Bild leak was triggered by the execution of six Israeli hostages by the hands of their Hamas captors, who sensed Israeli troops approaching the tunnel the place they have been situated within the southern Gaza metropolis of Rafah on the finish of August 2024.

The execution sparked large public uproar in opposition to the federal government, which critics noticed because the impediment in hostage negotiations as a consequence of Netanyahu’s perceived prioritization of an amorphous “whole victory” in opposition to Hamas on the expense of the captives’ lives.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks throughout a press convention at his workplace in Jerusalem, August 10, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90) ‘They took benefit of me’ Feldstein can be a suspect within the so-called Qatargate affair, which has additionally implicated Netanyahu’s closest advisers.

That case facilities round Urich and Feldstein’s alleged aspect work on behalf of Qatar whereas they have been in Netanyahu’s make use of. The work was with the Notion PR agency headed by Einhorn, Netanyahu’s former marketing campaign supervisor.

Within the Tuesday Kan interview, Feldstein denied having knowingly labored on behalf of Qatar or of getting recognized that Urich was doing so.

“I've excellent purpose to suppose they used me, took benefit of me,” Feldstein stated of Urich and Einhorn.

Felstein was pressed on a collection of media interviews he helped arrange for Jerusalem Publish editor Zvika in order that the latter may promote the messages he had heard from Qatari officers on a visit to Doha organized by Notion.

Feldstein insisted that it didn’t happen to him that this may be a part of a overseas affect operation, by which a overseas agent for the Qatari authorities paid Notion to advertise a media narrative pleasant to Doha.

Demonstrators stage a scene depicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holding cash acquired from Qatar exterior the District Courtroom in Tel Aviv, on April 9, 2025, the place Netanyahu is testifying within the trial in opposition to him. (Jack GUEZ / AFP) Furthermore, Feldstein instructed Kan that when he acquired pro-Qatari messages from Urich to go alongside to journalists, he believed it was correct info.

One of many most important allegations in opposition to Feldstein is that he was paid by a businessman tied to a overseas agent for Qatar.

Feldstein instructed Kan that he thought the odd fee scheme was as a consequence of the truth that he had failed a safety clearance backgound examine and due to this fact couldn’t obtain his wage instantly from the Prime Minister’s Workplace.

“Is it doable that issues I put out served, aided, helped, after-the-fact, or as a aspect impact, or a consequence, some official in Qatar? It could possibly be,” he acknowledged. Nevertheless, he insisted that he was not conscious of it in real-time.

“They took me, with my motivation, my need to belong, to really feel part of one thing, and so they used me,” Feldstein stated.

Undercutting Feldstein’s claims, i24News printed on Tuesday what it stated have been texts displaying that Feldstein had been in touch with Jay Footlik — a overseas agent for Qatar registered in Washington — who praised his work advancing media messaging that suited Doha.

Eli Feldstein’s lawyer Oded Savoray (left), Jonatan Urich’s lawyer Amit Hadad (middle) and different attorneys attend a courtroom listening to at which police requested to increase the remand of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aides Urich and Feldstein amid the continued Qatargate investigation, on the Rishon LeZion Justice of the Peace’s Courtroom, April 3, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90) The community stated that Feldstein handed alongside the message to Urich, who in flip, expressed his personal approval, provided that Urich can be alleged to have been engaged on Qatar’s behalf

Bennett urges probe of Netanyahu in Qatargate ‘betrayal’ case Because the Qatargate revelations mounted concerning Netanyahu and his interior circle, former prime minister Naftali Bennett gave a press release to the press by which he referred to as on Israel’s legislation enforcement companies to go away no stone unturned in investigating the scandal and to query Netanyahu himself.

Bennett stated the actions of Netanyahu’s interior circle “are a “knife within the coronary heart of our heroic troopers and a knife within the coronary heart of the whole folks of Israel.”

“That is the gravest betrayal within the historical past of the State of Israel as a result of it doesn't come from minor figures… however from essentially the most senior and highly effective folks in Israel. We should truthfully acknowledge that planting energetic brokers contained in the workplace of the prime minister of Israel is a major intelligence and safety success for our enemy, Qatar.”

Bennett says that he's “not claiming that Netanyahu gave the order to behave on behalf of Qatar, and even that he knew his closest advisers have been receiving lots of of 1000's of shekels from the enemy.” However he stated the general public had a proper to know why the prime minister stays silent and continues “at this very second, to cowl up the betrayal in his workplace.”

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett provides a video assertion on December 23, 2025. (Display screen seize/X) Netanyahu, Bennett asserted, ought to have fired his advisers and summoned Israeli legislation enforcement to analyze the second he realized concerning the scandal.

Nevertheless, Netanyahu acted in “precisely the alternative manner,” alleged Bennett, accusing the prime minister and his workforce of “doing every part they will to torpedo the investigation of the reality.”

Likud hit again at Bennett, accusing him of mudslinging with a purpose to distract from his personal issues.

In a press release, Likud stated that Qatargate suspects Einhorn and Feldstein “have been by no means a part of the Prime Minister’s Bureau.”

To make this declare, Netanyahu’s workplace is seemingly counting on the truth that Feldstein failed his safety clearance background examine and due to this fact was by no means formally employed by the federal government. Nevertheless, this didn't seem to cease Netanyahu from utilizing his companies, and Feldstein was photographed in high-level safety conferences with Netanyahu over the previous yr.

Feldstein was broadly recognized by reporters as Netanyahu’s spokesperson for navy affairs all through the battle, no matter whether or not he was receiving his paycheck instantly from the prime minister’s workplace.

Jonatan Urich, who was arrested as a part of the Qatargate investigation, arrives at a courtroom listening to in Lod on August 19, 2025. (Jonathan Shaul/Flash90) After Feldstein’s arrest final yr, Netanyahu’s workplace first claimed that he wasn’t an worker. The premier then shifted to defending him as a loyal aide earlier than ultimately turning on him, after Feldstein started telling investigators that every one of his actions have been on the path of the Prime Minister’s Workplace.

The Tuesday Likud assertion insisted that no proof has proven any ties between Netanyahu’s workplace and Qatar.

“Because the starting of the battle, the Prime Minister’s Workplace and the prime minister have attacked Qatar, and Qatar has attacked the prime minister numerous instances,” Likud stated, accusing Bennett of inventing blood libels in opposition to Netanyahu’s social gathering to divert consideration from “the intense supplies revealed within the hacking of his telephone, that are being hid from the general public eye.”

Final week, Bennett acknowledged that hackers had gained entry to his Telegram account, and numerous information, together with his contact listing, have been posted on-line.

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