A new scandal is developing over a 32-year-old member of Netanyahu's staff. By leaking fake information to the media, the aide contributed to derailing hostage negotiations and escalating the war. For opposition leader Lapid, the PM is either “incompetent” or “complicit”.

Jerusalem (AsiaNews) – Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu is caught up in another legal-political scandal. The Israeli leader is already on trial on charges of corruption, fraud and abuse of power, but proceedings were put on hold because of the office he holds, which shields him from criminal prosecution, and the wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

The issue is particularly sensitive since it indirectly concerns Israeli hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza and ongoing negotiations to free them, amid street protests by their families, which have contributed to new revelations involving the case.

According to the latest reports, Eli Feldstein, a member of Netanyahu's staff and a former aide to National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, was arrested for leaking information that could have damaged the hostage negotiations.

He allegedly provided two media outlets – UK-based Jewish Chronicle and German tabloid Bild - with an alleged Hamas plan that came in the possession of the Israeli government.

The information claimed that Palestinian group wanted to move the people abducted on 7 October 2023 to Iran, through secret tunnels between Gaza and Egypt.

After the information turned out to be false, the British weekly removed the article from its website and fired the writer of the article.

The goal of the story was to back Netanyahu’s claim that negotiations with Hamas were useless, blaming the Palestinian group for their failure, and justifying Israel’s intensification of its military operations.

It is worth noting that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) later debunked the story, saying that a mid-level Hamas officer had drafted a recommendation paper to smuggle the hostages through the Philadelphi Corridor, which turned out to be outdated and unreliable.

Despite denials, the articles were picked up by Israeli newspapers and had a major impact, with Netanyahu citing them in meetings of the Security Committee, and insisting on the need to escalate the war.

After a two-month investigation Shin Bet named Prime Minister's office spokesperson Eliezer Feldstein as the source of the fake stories. Israel’s domestic intelligence service also noted that three other people were involved, but they remain gagged by the court.

All four face up to 15 years in prison, but media focus is on the prime minister and questions about how much he knew about the affair, which sank hostage negotiations and led to the intensification of military operations.

Feldstein, 32, served as an officer in the military’s spokesperson unit, serving as spokesman for the religious Netzah Yehuda battalion and for the army’s West Bank Division.

A native of Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv, he was at one point an operations officer within the IDF Spokesman’s unit, the first Orthodox person in that role, according to the Ynet news site.

After he left the military, he briefly worked as a spokesperson for Otzma Yehudit head Itamar Ben Gvir.

Except for the name of the "mole" and a few other details, most details of the affair – whose implications are unpredictable – are still under wraps for security reasons.

For its part, the Israeli government is trying to downplay its significance, insisting that it has no impact on the war or the political future of the governing coalition.

Yet, the affair is expected to fuel the anger of the families of the hostages whose fate, government leaders and Netanyahu himself seem to have used to pursue their own interests.

The suspicion, or perhaps something more than a suspicion, is that Israeli leaders deliberately derailed a possible hostage deal to escalate the military campaign by opening the northern front with Lebanon.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid has become one of the loudest critics since the “Bibileaks” scandal broke out, calling the prime minister "incompetent" or "complicit" in a serious security breach.

Netanyahu “is not qualified to lead the State of Israel in the most difficult war in its history,” Lapid said at a joint press conference with National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz,

Speaking after the decision by Rishon Letzion Magistrates Court to lift a gag order on naming the main defendant (Eli Feldstein), Lapid also harshly slammed Netanyahu’s attempt to defend himself, when he said “that he has no influence or control over the bodies he leads. “

“This case came out of the Prime Minister’s Office, and the investigation should check if it was not on the prime minister’s orders,” went on to say the opposition leader. “If Netanyahu knew, he is complicit in one of the most serious security offences in the law book.”

More importantly for Lapid, “if he did not know that his close aides were stealing documents, operating spies within the IDF, forging documents, exposing intelligence sources and passing secret documents to foreign newspapers in order to stop the hostage deal, what does he know?”

• israel
• gaza war
• hamas
• hostages
• leaks
• lebanon
• benyamin netanyahu
• yair lapid
• bibileaks