Israel in a Serious Investigation Over Information Leak connected to PM Office
Amid an ongoing investigation regarding illicit access to IDF intel and leaks by several suspects including a spokesman in the Prime Minister’s Office, a court cleared for publication Tuesday that an additional police probe is being conducted, into “criminal incidents” last year reportedly linked to wartime meetings.
While most of the details of the new case remain under a gag order, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to confirm that the investigation, which has been in progress for some six months, concerned his office, releasing a statement blasting it as “an unprecedented hunting expedition against the Prime Minister’s Office in the midst of a war.”
Earlier, a court allowed the publication of the fact that the police were probing “criminal incidents” related to the start of the war against Hamas in Gaza.
“The police’s Lahav 433 investigation unit is conducting a criminal probe related to incidents from the start of the war, including several open investigations,” the statement said, adding that further details are barred from publication.
Lahav 433 investigates serious crimes including public corruption.
Reports in Hebrew media indicated that the probe is linked to reported allegations earlier in the year that Netanyahu had been attempting to keep his conversations regarding the management of the war in Gaza untraceable.
A statement from Netanyahu’s office blasted the fact that, following a year of “criminal leaks” from government-level discussions, “the only two investigations that were opened were directed against the Prime Minister’s Office and not against the serial leakers, none of whom were investigated, and who caused tremendous damage to the hostages and Israel’s security.”
The PMO added that “as with the other attempts to inflate accusations against the prime minister and his entourage, in this matter, too, the mountain will turn out to be not even a molehill, but will certainly lead to difficult questions about unprecedented and unfounded selective enforcement of the law.”
Earlier this year, the Ynet news site 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.
The report indicated that Netanyahu’s former military secretary, Maj. Gen. Avi Gil, had alerted the attorney general to such activity after he was reportedly approached by others in the PMO voicing their concerns.
At the time, Netanyahu’s office denied the report, calling it a “complete lie.”
“Whoever is familiar with the processes knows that something like this could not happen. All discussions are recorded and transcribed by law, and therefore their content cannot be changed,” his office said.
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 news of the ongoing investigation broke on Tuesday amid a separate deepening scandal linked to the PMO, in which top-secret documents held by the IDF were allegedly systematically stolen and leaked to officials in the premier’s circle, who leaked at least one of them to the foreign press for political gain.
Over the past week, five suspects have been arrested as part of the case surrounding suspected leaks of stolen classified information with national security implications. On Sunday, a court cleared for publication the name of the main suspect, Eli Feldstein, a former Netanyahu spokesman, while four unnamed IDF soldiers have also been arrested.
Feldstein’s detention was extended on Tuesday for another six days by the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court. Two of the other suspects also saw their detentions extended by the court for a further six days. One of the suspects has been released.
Separately on Monday, Netanyahu demanded that Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara investigate what he called “a never-ending flood of serious leaks and revealing state secrets” since the start of the war last year.
Netanyahu added that the leaks have come from cabinet meetings, the security cabinet, hostage negotiators and by other means in situations in which there were no government members present
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