The magistrate court in Rison Letzion on Sunday lifted some of the gag order on the case involving a possible security breach by a close aid to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Eli Feldstein, who was Netanyahu's liaison to military security reporters was in custody for the past three weeks, suspected of leaking classified documents to foreign media outlets, in a misleading way and endangering national security.
Although he was not given security clearance, Feldstein accompanied Netanyahu on visits to sensitive security facilities during the war, including the Air Force command bunker at the IDF’s Tel Aviv military headquarters and was even exposed to classified transcripts from meetings held by the Security Cabinet.
According to court filings, in April a reserve soldier serving in a secret intelligence unit gave Feldstein a copy of a classified document via social media, "so that it would reach the prime minister and assist him in making the right decisions for the hostages."
On August 31, six hostages were executed by Hamas in a tunnel in Rafah. They were Hirsh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Almog Sarusi, Carmel Gat and Alex Lubanov. The brutal murder causd outrage in Israel and prompted a wave of protest against the government and Netanyahu for failing to secure the release of hostages in a deal with Hamas and saving at least some who were to be released in the first phase of the deal that was being negotiated at the time.
3 View gallery
From top left: Ori Danino, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alex Lobanov, Carmel Gat and Almog Sarusi (Photo: Courtesy)
(Photo: Courtesy)
Therefore, early in September, Feldstein decided to release the document to the Israeli media in order to sway public opinion and portray the protests of the families of hostages, against the government, that had been taking place for the past year, as bolstering Hamas and its leader Yahya Sinwar.
Feldstein approached a number of Israeli media outlets. One reporter submitted the document to the military censor who banned its publication.
Families of hostages protest government failure to secure their release
(Photo: IDF Erez)
Feldstein then decided to bypass the censor and gave the document to the foreign media. He was assisted by another person to bring the document to publication in the German Bild newspaper. At the same time, he informed Israeli journalists that the story will be published as asked them to do a follow-up report.
On September 6 the Bild published a report dealing with the Hamas positions in negotiations to free the hostages, and used documents obtained illegally from IDF intelligence. A few days later, the military launched an investigation into the leak of documents, at the request of Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi.
The military found that a document that was sensitive and classified as "top secret," was leaked and its publication, the investigators said could harm efforts to achieve the release of hostages which is one of the objectives of the war and could damage IDF and Shin Bet operations in Gaza.
Feldstein who saw that the validity of the report in the Bild was under question, met the reserve soldier in the intelligence unit and received a hardcopy of the document and two other documents classified as "top secret." One of the documents dealt with "unusual actions by players in the region at time of war, that could be suspected as targeting Israel."
A joint IDF and Shin Bet investigation led to the leaks being stopped and prevented damage to Israel's security. After the source of the leak was found, further intelligence gathered by investigators, strengthened suspicions against others who were involved.
The reserve soldier, two officers and a non-commissioned officer along with Feldstein were arrested late in October and the investigation became public knowledge
Netanyahu who at first denied Feldstein was part of the Prime Minister's office later criticized the Shin Bet and the police for mistreating Feldstein and the other suspects who were prevented from seeing council in the fist weeks of their detention. His son Yair, who is active on social media even accused the Shin Bet of staging a coup against his father.
Get the Ynetnews app on your smartphone: