Eli Feldstein, Netanyahu aide jailed in leaks case, placed under suicide watch
Prison service says ‘wardens found something’ in prisoner’s cell; reports say it was a rubber strip that the suspect could have used to hang himself
Eli Feldstein, a former spokesman and aide to Prime Minister Netanyahu who is a central suspect in the Prime Minister’s Office leaks affair, was put under suicide prevention watch in prison on Monday.
“Wardens found something in the cell of a security prisoner held in a jail in the south that necessitated, in accordance with the instructions of the prison commander, his immediate transfer to a cell where he could be monitored to prevent a suicide,” the service said in a statement, without naming the prisoner.
Hebrew media identified Feldstein as the prisoner who was transferred, and reported that prison guards found a rubber strip in the cell that he could have used to hang himself.
On Sunday, the State Attorney’s Office informed the court that it intends to indict Feldstein and another key suspect in the affair.
Feldstein and the other suspect, whose name has not been released for publication, are suspected of transferring classified information to harm the state, collecting classified material to harm the state, and conspiring to commit a crime, among other charges.
Feldstein is suspected of leaking a classified document to the German newspaper Bild in order to change the public discourse over the fate of the Israeli hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza; have Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar blamed for the impasse in hostage release negotiations; and imply that protests demanding the release the hostages were playing into Hamas’s hands.
According to the information released Sunday by Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court judge Menachem Mizrahi, the IDF initiated an investigation into a possible leak after the publication of the Bild report due to the highly sensitive nature of the document.
After initial checks by the army’s information security department, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi himself requested that the Shin Bet domestic security agency open its own, secret investigation in parallel to help identify those behind the leak.
The identification of the main alleged culprit, the noncommissioned officer reservist, led the investigators to three other suspects involved in the leak — two IDF reserve officers, and a career NCO — and eventually to Feldstein as well.
Over the course of the investigation, “a grave leak axis was exposed” which began with the reservist NCO, “who decided of his own accord to remove a top secret and sensitive document from the IDF’s authority in order to pass it to the political rank,” the court said.
The reserve NCO passed the document to Feldstein in April via a social media account, and the spokesperson held on to it until September.
The murder of the six hostages by Hamas spawned an outpouring of grief in the country, and protests erupted against Netanyahu, accusing him of blocking a hostage deal, with relatives of the slain hostages joining such criticism.
Then, on September 6, the Bild article based on the leaked document was published, reporting that Hamas was indifferent to a quick end to the war and was prioritizing maintaining the terror group’s military capabilities and “exhausting” Israel’s military and political apparatuses in the negotiations.
The court noted that the Bild report came just after the murder of the hostages and the subsequent protests against the government “and as part of a desire to change the public discourse and direct the finger of blame at [Hamas leader] Yahya Sinwar.”
Investigators believe that the leak of the document had the potential to do severe damage to national security, the court disclosed, while the IDF came to the conclusion that the leak harmed the war aim of freeing the hostages, as well as the operations of the IDF and the Shin Bet security service in Gaza.
A lawyer for Feldstein did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the information released by the court.
Netanyahu is not a suspect in the case. A gag order still applies to aspects of the case.
