Police arrest a Netanyahu adviser as opponents accuse him of leaking intelligence to thwart the Gaza ceasefire and hostage-taking deal

CNN
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Israeli police have arrested a top adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for allegedly leaking classified information to foreign media.

Opposition leaders say the intelligence is “fake” and part of a ploy to thwart a ceasefire and hostage-taking deal in Gaza.

The investigation focuses on allegations that the prime minister's office spread to foreign media the claim that Hamas was planning to smuggle hostages from Gaza across the Egyptian border and create divisions in Israeli society to pressure Netanyahu into a hostage release and a ceasefire agreement to urge.

Eliezer Feldstein, who has been named by opposition politicians as an adviser to Netanyahu, is among several people being questioned about sharing “confidential and sensitive intelligence information,” according to court documents. A court order released Sunday said information taken from Israeli military systems and “illegally released” may have affected Israel's ability to free hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.

CNN is attempting to reach Feldstein for comment.

A spokesman for Netanyahu denied that there was information from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and that “the person in question never took part in security-related discussions,” apparently referring to Feldstein.

The PMO also downplayed the possibility that the leak had any impact on negotiations with Hamas over the release of hostages from Gaza, calling the claim “ridiculous.”

Opposition leader Yair Lapid on Sunday accused the prime minister's office of “leaking fake secret documents to torpedo the possibility of a hostage deal – to organize an operation to influence public opinion against the families of the hostages.”

Families of hostages held in Gaza have accused Netanyahu of repeatedly thwarting a deal with Hamas, believing an end to the Gaza war would force the prime minister to call elections. Netanyahu is said to have torpedoed agreements in the past with 11th-hour demands – which he denies.

The alleged leaks formed the basis of two articles published in September, one in the Jewish Chronicle in the United Kingdom and one in Germany's Bild newspaper, both of which cited Israeli intelligence sources and supported a narrative promoted by Netanyahu at the time.

The articles were published as negotiations for a ceasefire and the release of hostages were ongoing, but also as thousands of Israelis demonstrated almost daily, demanding the government make a deal with Hamas and bring Israeli hostages home.

Those demonstrations intensified after the Israeli military announced on September 1 that six Israelis had been killed in Gaza – four of whom were to be released in a first wave of the potential deal.

The next day, Netanyahu held a press conference and presented an alleged Hamas document that he said was found in a tunnel in Gaza. The document, he said, shows that Hamas is trying to divide Israelis. “I will not give in to this pressure,” Netanyahu said, reiterating his demand that Israel control the Gaza-Egypt border, also known as the Philadelphi Corridor. This would “prevent the smuggling of our hostages to Sinai,” he said. “They can show up in Iran or Yemen.”

Just days later, Jewish Chronicle published an article claiming that intelligence sources said: “Sinwar's plan was to transport himself and the remaining Hamas leaders, along with Israeli hostages, through the Philadelphia Corridor to Sinai and from there to Iran to smuggle.”

The article states that the information was “obtained during the interrogation of a captured senior Hamas official, as well as through information contained in documents recovered on Thursday, August 29, the day the six bodies of the murdered hostages were recovered.” were confiscated.” It has since been deleted, but an archived version remains available.

The prime minister's son, Yair Netanyahu, promoted the article on his social media.

During a press conference on September 10, Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told a reporter: “I don't know the kind of information you mentioned about Sinwar and the hostages in Philadelphi.”

During the same period, an article in the German Bild newspaper said a Hamas document purportedly written by Yahya Sinwar purportedly showed how the group was prolonging the war and attempting to create divisions and pressure within Israel to exert pressure on the families of the hostages so that they could in turn put pressure on the government. Bild cited an intelligence document and reiterated the claims Netanyahu made in his September 2 press conference.

In a statement on September 8, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that the document cited by Bild was not written by Sinwar and that it was an old document found five months ago and “represented as a recommendation from the middle ranks of the Israel Defense Forces.” “It was written by Hamas and not by …” Sinwar.”

The information did not constitute “new information,” the IDF said, adding that it was “presented to decision-makers several times even before the document in question was found.” The statement added that they were investigating the leak of the document, which “constitutes a serious offense.”

After the court lifted a gag order on Sunday, families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza pointed the finger at the prime minister's office, saying: “Suspicion suggests that people associated with the prime minister are one of the largest “Deceptions have been committed in the history of the country.”

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz – who resigned from Netanyahu's war cabinet earlier this year – have interpreted the alleged leaks as a failure at the top of the government and called Gantz a “national crime.”

Both blamed Netanyahu's office for the revelations, with Gantz accusing Netanyahu of exploiting the revelations for political purposes. According to a joint statement from the two opposition leaders on Sunday, Lapid also questioned whether the revelation may have been intentional, given that hostage-taking negotiations with Hamas failed earlier this year.

“There is suspicion that Netanyahu's team published secret documents and falsified secret documents to torpedo the possibility of a hostage deal,” Lapid said in a statement. “This matter came from the Prime Minister’s own office and the investigation must examine whether it was not on the orders of the Prime Minister.”

Dana Karni and Mike Schwartz contributed to this report.