Court rejects request from suspects in PM’s office leak of stolen documents scandal to end house arrest

The Tel Aviv District Court rejects requests by the key figures in the scandal relating to Prime Minister’s Office classified documents to be released from house arrest and electronic tagging, ruling that circumstances have not changed to warrant such a decision.

Eli Feldstein, who served as an aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and IDF reserve NCO Ari Rosenfeld were indicted last year on charges of transferring classified information, with Feldstein hit with an additional charge of seeking to harm state security.

Feldstein was released to house arrest with electronic tagging in December 2024, and Rosenfeld released under the same terms in February this year.

Feldstein’s lawyers had claimed in his request to be released from house arrest that he now posed a diminished threat to the state, but Judge Ala Masarwa disagrees.

Both Rosenfeld and Feldstein argued that since the police investigation into other suspects in the case is still ongoing, which has delayed the beginning of their trial, the extended delay meant they should be released from house arrest.

Masarwa rules, however, that these delays were not “especially dramatic” or unexpected and therefore rejects the request for release from house arrest.

He adds that he would be willing to consider future requests regarding the conditions of their detention.