In testimony, PM’s ex-spokesman said to hint at coverup attempt in leaked documents case

Eli Feldstein, the former spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office who is a key figure in two major investigations, told police about a secret late-night meeting with a senior official apparently from the premier’s office just days before his arrest, according to a Wednesday report in Hebrew media.

Feldstein was arrested in late 2024, on suspicion of leaking stolen classified intelligence information to the German tabloid Bild.

He is also a central figure in the so-called Qatargate scandal, where he allegedly took money from Doha to boost its image in Israel following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.

According to a Channel 12 news report, Feldstein told investigators that he received a call at one in the morning from someone he believed to be from the Prime Minister’s Office, and was summoned promptly for a meeting at the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv.

After he entered the parking garage, a man approached Feldstein’s car and got inside.

According to the report, the official hinted during the meeting that he could “suppress the whole matter” — referring to a covert IDF investigation into the leaking of a Hamas document.

Feldstein said the official showed him “a list of names” connected to the leaking the document and that he later realized it included senior figures in the Prime Minister’s Office who were targets of a secret investigation.

In his testimony, Feldstein allegedly refused to name names, warning investigators, “You know what it means when they talk about the poison machine working at those levels up there. They’ll understand that I’ve spoken in the investigation, and that’s a burden I won’t be able to bear.”

Feldstein also reportedly claimed that the prime minister’s associates know what they are doing, and that “they gather information in the office about people, just as they gathered it on Defense Minister [Yoav] Gallant.”

Netanyahu fired Gallant as defense minister first in March 2023, before rescinding the move after mass protests, and then again in November 2024.

Feldstein gave this testimony while being held in solitary confinement for 10 days, the report added.

Late last year, Feldstein was charged with transferring classified information with the intent to harm the state, a charge that can carry a sentence of life in prison, as well as illicit possession of classified information and obstruction of justice.

Responding to the Channel 12 report, the Prime Minister’s Office called it a “series of lies that are completely unrelated to reality” while the State Attorney’s Office refused to comment, saying it could neither deny nor confirm the reporting.