Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was fully aware and even involved in the leaking of a top-secret document to the German newspaper Bild, according to a newly released protocol of a closed-door court hearing in the classified documents case.
The hearing in question was held on December 5 with High Court judge Alex Stein presiding. At issue was the state’s appeal against a decision by a regional court judge to free the two main suspects in the case to house arrest. The suspects are Ari Rosenfeld, a reserve NCO who allegedly leaked the document in April 2024 to Eli Feldstein, a member of the prime minister’s media team. Feldstein, the second suspect, allegedly leaked the document to the Bild after its publication in Israel was rejected by IDF censorship.
On September 1, a day after the bodies of six recently-executed hostages were retrieved from the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu held a press conference in which he argued, among other things, that the protests that were gaining momentum at the time were playing into Hamas’s hands.
According to Feldstein’s lawyer, Adv. Oded Svorai, following the press conference, Feldstein whispered into the prime minister’s ear that he had a top-secret document that “said the same thing but is more relevant” and was “working to publish it”, the court protocol showed.
Svorai’s mentioned Netanyahu’s involvement in order to argue that Feldstein did not intend to harm national security since he believed he was acting with the prime minister’s backing, the protocol showed. Svorai also pointed out the involvement of Netanyahu’s long-time media aide, Yonatan Urich. According to Svorai, Urich told Feldstein that he “needed the prime minister” in order to get the information out. Svorai also pointed out that when Bild published the document’s content on September 6, Urich texted Feldstein saying that “the boss is happy.”
Potential future indictments
Urich maintained silence in investigations on the issue, and was not indicted. Netanyahu was not investigated, but the new information raises the possibility that the prime minister himself committed a crime.
The protocol also reveals two new facts about the NCO, Ari Rosenfeld. The state’s representative in the hearing, Adv. Noa Ezra Rachmani, Rosenfeld was “euphoric” when the information was published and was quick to supply Feldstein with a physical copy of the material. In addition, Rosenfeld had considered leaking additional information directly to the media, but eventually decided against it.
Ezra Rachmani stated these facts in order to argue that the NCO was a liability to reveal more secret information, and should therefore remain in custody. Stein accepted this argument, as he ruled on December 9 that Feldstein could be released to house arrest, but the NCO must remain in custody.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘1730128020581377’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
