Sara Netanyahu sues networks for defamation over reports she leaked security secrets

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife Sara filed a lawsuit for defamation on Monday against Channel 12 News, over a report in which it was claimed that she leaked highly sensitive security information, including that Israel was about to assassinate former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah three days before the actual strike.

“The respondents published and amplified a complete lie that the prime minister’s wife is passing sensitive intelligence information to friends and unauthorized parties,” the lawsuit stated.

“Lies were spread that the plaintiff told friends about the intention to eliminate the Hezbollah leader three days before he was killed, and other ugly lies,” the suit continued, adding that the report constituted “a new level of severe and wild incitement and slander against the complainant while presenting lies as facts.”

The claim that Sara Netanyahu disclosed such information to her friends came from Udi Mizrahi, the host of a popular Telegram news channel with 250,000 followers.

Mizrahi told the Kan public broadcaster on Sunday that he knew about Iran’s attack against Israel in April, the assassination of Nasrallah, and Israel’s ground operation in Lebanon before they occurred, thanks to second- and third-hand reports he received of information disclosed by the prime minister’s wife.

“I have the best source in the world, who never stops giving me reports, but doesn’t even know they’re reporting — Sara Netanyahu. She has a lot of friends she tells things to,” Mizrahi said.

“Thanks to her, I knew we were going to assassinate Nasrallah,” he claimed, adding, “I’m telling you this, even if they file a thousand lawsuits against me, I can prove it,” he said.

“She talks to her friends. I knew three days in advance that they were going to assassinate [Nasrallah]. Three days in advance,” he then told Channel 12.

Mizrahi did indeed publish an item on his Telegram channel that Nasrallah was likely to be assassinated by Israel a day before the air strike killing the Hezbollah leader was carried out.

“In light of the developments in the north, and my own personal assessment, within a week, or just days, Nasrallah will be assassinated by Israel, his location was always known to Israeli intelligence,” he posted at the time.

Speaking to Channel 12, Mizrahi denounced his sources as endangering the lives of soldiers by leaking such sensitive information.

“If Sara Netanyahu, or you — for the sake of illustration — tell me, or someone else, something after the fact, that’s fine, but when you tell me things before they happen, it puts people’s lives in danger, it puts operations at risk,” he said.

Sara Netanyahu’s lawsuit was filed against Channel 12 News; its parent company, the Keshet media group; the Kan public broadcaster; the journalist Omri Maniv, who published the report for Channel 12; and Udi Mizrahi himself.

“Uvda” fallout continues

The lawsuit came days after an investigation by Channel 12’s “Uvda” program, aired Thursday, alleged that Sara Netanyahu sought to intimidate a witness in her husband’s criminal trial and have protesters harass the attorney general, the deputy state attorney, and those seen as hostile to the premier or his family.

Harassing a witness and seeking to subvert the testimony of a witness are criminal offenses punishable by three years and seven years in prison, respectively.

Following the “Uvda” report, dozens of people reportedly filed police complaints, urging an investigation. Many of the complainants were part of a WhatsApp group specifically created to give members of the public instructions on how to file police complaints against Sara Netanyahu online.

Hadas Klein, a key witness in Case 1000, one of the criminal cases against the prime minister, was among those who filed a complaint, according to Hebrew media. According to the investigation, Sara Netanyahu sought to intimidate Klein by having Likud activists publish attacks against her and demonstrate outside her house ahead of, or during, her testimony in court.

Channel 12 reported Monday that police have begun to investigate the complaints.

The “Uvda” investigation, which relied on correspondence from Benjamin Netanyahu’s late aide Hanni Bleiweiss, also indicated that the premier’s wife and son were active in efforts to dig up dirt on the prime minister’s political rivals and that they sought the promotion of police officers who complied with the request.

It claimed Bleiweiss talked up now-Police Commissioner Daniel Levy to Sara Netanyahu, and that he himself had offered messages of support for the premier through her.

In response to the “Uvda” report, the police originally issued a response saying, “In practice, there is and never was any connection between the two.”

However,  Levy admitted on Monday to a “longstanding friendship” with Bleiweiss, in a letter to members of the force, in which he asserted that his “relationship with the late Ms. Hanni Bleiweiss was a longstanding friendship, devoid of any interests or political considerations.

“This friendship began during her time as a volunteer in the Tel Aviv District, where I served, and nothing more,” he wrote.

Following Levy’s admission on Monday, the leader of the left-wing Democrats party, Yair Golan, leveled what his spokesman described as an “explicit threat” at the police commissioner.

“Netanyahu and [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben Gvir will not always be here to protect you. On the day following the current government, the truth will come out and if necessary, we will also hold you to account,” Golan warned Levy.

“Personal loyalty to Netanyahu at the expense of loyalty to the law, the state, and its citizens is not only a moral and ethical error — it is a serious criminal offense,” he stated.

Responding to Golan, Ben Gvir said the opposition politician’s statement constituted “a dangerous crossing of a red line and an intolerable threat to the rule of law.”

“Anyone who threatens the Israel Police commissioner directly harms democracy and the law enforcement system, and proves once again how disconnected and irresponsible he is,” Ben Gvir charged in a statement.

Yair Netanyahu to testify via Zoom

Meanwhile, Yair Netanyahu, the prime minister’s son, asked a Jerusalem court for permission to testify this coming Thursday in a pending lawsuit over Zoom rather than in person because he “is not in Israel and does not expect to return to Israel soon,” according to the Walla news site.

The younger Netanyahu, who lives in Miami, is being sued by Haaretz writer Yossi Klein, over a misleading tweet he shared during protests against the government’s judicial overhaul.

In the tweet — originally posted by journalist Yair Levy, then shared by Yair Netanyahu — Klein was quoted as having written that “protesters went home with a bad feeling because no blood was spilled.” In fact, Klein had written that “Protesters went home with a bad feeling, but also with a kind of relief. No blood was spilled.”