Several reports on Thursday night claimed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office had separately collected sensitive security camera videos of both recently fired defense minister Yoav Gallant and an IDF officer who worked at the Prime Minister’s Office, for unclear purposes.
The PMO denied the claims, calling them defamatory fabrications.
Multiple Hebrew outlets including Haaretz, Ynet, Kan and others reported that IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi was informed several months ago that the PMO was in possession of “sensitive” footage of a senior military figure who had worked with the office. Halevi was told that the footage had been used in a questionable manner, the reports said.
The reports said the matter appeared tied to other scandals that have engulfed the PMO in recent days and to police investigations into several of the prime minister’s aides.
According to reporting from Channel 12, two senior officials in the office are thought to have been involved in extracting sensitive material from security cameras, for reasons unknown.
No further details were given.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ahead of his address on the opening day of the winter session at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on October 28, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/ Flash90)
The Prime Minister’s Office staunchly rebuked the reporting, saying the claims were “fabrications with no basis, other than an attempt to defame the office and its employees. This is yet another witch hunt against the Prime Minister’s Office during a time of war, using lies that have no foundation. The facts will speak for themselves, clearly and unequivocally.”
Meanwhile, Ynet said “embarrassing” footage of Gallant was also collected, showing him in October 2023 having an altercation with a security guard at the Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv.
It said the PMO had been holding onto the tape since the incident, amid the deteriorating relations between Gallant and Netanyahu, for unclear reasons.
The alleged incident occurred five days after the start of the war, on October 12, 2023. According to Ynet’s sources, the Prime Minister’s Office had invited Gallant to a cabinet meeting at Netanyahu’s office at the Kirya base, which houses the IDF and Defense Ministry headquarters. Upon arrival, he was denied entry by the PMO’s security detail. A physical confrontation then allegedly ensued between Gallant and the PMO’s security guard.
Ynet quoted a senior source as saying that at the start of the war, “there were repeated attempts by Netanyahu and his associates to humiliate Gallant by not inviting him to security meetings or trying to sideline him in decision-making.”
The report said Netanyahu’s spokesman Jonatan Urich quickly obtained the footage of the incident and shared it with several other people, then held onto it. Urich responded to Ynet’s request for comment, saying: “I don’t know anything about this story.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (foreground) and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant at a press conference at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, December 16, 2023. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)
In the past week, police have opened two separate investigations tied to the PMO, the first deals with top-secret documents held by the IDF that were allegedly systematically stolen and leaked to officials in the premier’s circle, who leaked at least one of them to the foreign press, possibly for political gain.
Five suspects have been arrested as part of the case, and on Sunday a court cleared for publication the name of the main suspect, Eli Feldstein, a spokesman who worked closely with the PMO. Four other arrested IDF servicemembers remain unnamed.
Eli Feldstein, a 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)
The second investigation into the PMO is being conducted by the police’s Lahav 433 investigation unit, which probes serious crimes including public corruption, and is looking into “criminal incidents” from the start of the war in Gaza.
Most of the details of the case remain under a gag order, but reports in Hebrew media indicated that the probe is linked to allegations earlier in the year that transcripts of sensitive cabinet meetings and security briefings had been tampered with.
According to Channel 12 news, police carried out a highly unusual raid at Netanyahu’s office on Saturday night, although the network said it was not immediately clear to which investigation this action was linked.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convenes a security cabinet meeting on July 28, 2024. (Haim Zach/GPO)
Earlier this year, Ynet reported that senior figures in the security establishment feared that efforts were being made to edit the minutes of wartime discussions held with Netanyahu, after discovering discrepancies between transcripts of the meetings and what the figures had heard in real-time.
According to Haaretz, police have been probing the matter for around six months, following concerns brought to them by a former staffer in the Prime Minister’s Office.
The PMO categorically rejected both investigations, calling them a “witch-hunt” against the prime minister.
