Senior prosecutors and top Justice Ministry officials are still deliberating which counts to include in the pending indictment against a former spokesman and aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli television reported Tuesday, after the State Prosector’s Office announced it intends to charge him and another key suspect in the affair.
Feldstein and another suspect, whose name has not been released for publication, are suspected of transferring classified information to harm the state, collecting classified material to harm the state, and conspiring to commit a crime, among other charges.
According to Channel 12 news, the State Prosecutor’s Office is considering whether to indict Eli Feldstein for unauthorized possession of a classified document, for which he could be incarcerated for up seven years; possessing a classified document with the intent to harm state security, which has a maximum sentence of 15 years; or possessing and transferring a classified document with the intent to harm state security, which carries a possible life sentence, though courts usually impose more lenient penalties.
The report, which noted Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has final authority to decide on the charges, did not specify what the other suspect may be indicted for.
Feldstein is suspected of leaking a classified document to the German newspaper Bild in order to change the public discourse over the fate of the Israeli hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza; have Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar blamed for the impasse in hostage release negotiations; and imply that protests demanding the release the hostages were playing into Hamas’s hands.
A separate report Tuesday by the Kan public broadcaster said that Jonathan Urich, one of Netanyahu’s spokespeople and advisers who has been questioned by police in the case, is suspected of having asked Feldstein whether he sent the document to Srulik Einhorn — a former senior campaign adviser to Netanyahu’s Likud party — who in turn passed it on to Bild.
Eli Feldstein (left,) a former spokesman in the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is the main suspect in an investigation launched in late October 2024 of alleged illegal access and leaking of classified intelligence material. (Kan screenshot, used in accordance with clause 27a of the copyright law); Likud spokesman Jonathan Urich speaks at a Central Elections Committee meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, April 3, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
According to the Haaretz daily, police suspect that Urich instructed Feldstein to send the document to the Serbia-based Einhorn, after a Channel 12 reporter who Feldstein leaked the document to was barred from reporting on it by the IDF censor.
Channel 13 news reported prosecutors were expected to dispatch investigators overseas to question Einhorn, as it remains unclear when he will return to Israel.
Srulik Einhorn (Youtube screenshot, used in accordance with clause 27a of the copyright law)
According to the information released Sunday by the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court, the IDF initiated an investigation into a possible leak after the publication of the Bild report due to the highly sensitive nature of the document.
After initial checks by the army’s information security department, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi himself requested that the Shin Bet domestic security agency open its own, secret investigation in parallel to help identify those behind the leak.
The identification of the main alleged culprit, the noncommissioned officer reservist, led the investigators to three other suspects involved in the leak — two IDF reserve officers, and a career NCO — and eventually to Feldstein as well.
The reserve NCO passed the document to Feldstein in April via a social media account, and the spokesperson held on to it until September.
The murder of the six hostages by Hamas spawned an outpouring of grief in the country, and protests erupted against Netanyahu, accusing him of blocking a hostage deal, with relatives of the slain hostages joining such criticism.
Then, on September 6, the Bild article based on the leaked document was published, reporting that Hamas was indifferent to a quick end to the war and was prioritizing maintaining the terror group’s military capabilities and “exhausting” Israel’s military and political apparatuses in the negotiations.
Bild’s September 6, 2024, story citing a document ostensibly found by troops on Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s computer.
The court noted that the Bild report came just after the murder of the hostages and the subsequent protests against the government “and as part of a desire to change the public discourse and direct the finger of blame at [Hamas leader] Yahya Sinwar.”
Investigators believe that the leak of the document had the potential to do severe damage to national security, the court disclosed, while the IDF came to the conclusion that the leak harmed the war aim of freeing the hostages, as well as the operations of the IDF and the Shin Bet security service in Gaza.
Netanyahu is not a suspect in the case, which a gag order still applies to aspects of.
