MKs spar over leaked ‘report’ clearing PM of Gaza war failures

Knesset members have been trading accusations over a report ostensibly clearing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of wrongdoing in his handling of the 2014 Gaza war, with Likud MKs accusing an opposition lawmaker of leaking confidential information.

Likud minister Tzachi Hanegbi claimed Thursday that Yesh Atid MK Ofer Shelach was behind media reports claiming that Hanegbi, as chair of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, had penned a report that went easy on the government’s performance in tackling the Hamas tunnel threat and passed it off as the committee’s findings. Hanegbi was chair of the panel until last week.

“Yesterday, MK Ofer Shelach leaked a highly confidential document,” Hanegbi told Army Radio, arguing that details of the report appeared in the media moments after Shelach, a member of the defense committee, had read a letter summarizing its findings.

“I wouldn’t have believed it of Ofer,” Hanegbi said. “With no shame, he leaked information — even inaccurately — that he knew to be confidential.”

The report, apparently written by Hanegbi alone without the input of other committee members, praises Netanyahu’s role during the 2014 operation in directing the army to destroy over 30 tunnels dug by Hamas from Gaza into Israel.

According to documents leaked last month from a damning state comptroller’s report on the Gaza conflict, Netanyahu and former defense minister Ya’alon failed to provide the security cabinet with real-time updates regarding the imminent threat of war with Hamas, or the capabilities of the terror group’s cross-border attack tunnels.

Hanegbi’s report, however, presents a very different picture.

Following Hanegbi’s comments to Army Radio, fellow Likud MK Yoav Kish wrote a letter to Shelach telling him he was suspected of leaking the information and urging him to take a polygraph test “to remove the heavy cloud hanging over your head regarding this issue.”

Kish wrote: “You were only committee member who came, when invited, to read the findings of the report. An hour after you saw the information, it was leaked to the media.”

Shelach responded to Hanegbi saying that accusation that he leaked the information is both “false and unfounded.”

“Hanegbi… is attempting to divert the debate from his misappropriation of the role of committee chair by trying to defend the prime minister, with false accusations about leaks. Instead of dealing with the question he has no answer to, he is choosing to deal with how the information got to the press.”

Hanegbi earlier this week was appointed minister without portfolio in the Prime Minister’s Office. The Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is now headed by Likud MK and former Shin Bet security service chief Avi Dichter.