‘He knew everything’: Netanyahu’s ex-aide says PM was ‘behind’ leak of intel to Bild

Eli Feldstein, a former spokesman to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, alleges that the premier was aware of and encouraged the leak of a classified document in September 2024 in order to sway public opinion about hostage negotiations.

“He knew everything,” Feldstein says in the second part of a two-part interview with the Kan public broadcaster. “He is the one who was ultimately behind the leak to Bild.”

Netanyahu’s assertions to the contrary are a “lie,” according to Feldstein.

The former spokesman also reports being in close contact with Netanyahu aide Jonatan Urich throughout the process, from the time Feldstein first received the document from military intelligence reservist Ari Rosenfeld, until it was published by the German newspaper.

The document – an internal communiqué from the Hamas terror group – was prohibited for publication by Israel’s military censor, amid concern that an intelligence source in Gaza could be endangered by its release.

Feldstein, Urich, and a close adviser to the premier, Yisrael (Srulik) Einhorn, are all being criminally investigated in connection with the affair. Netanyahu himself is not a suspect in the probe.

Urich “knew everything that I knew,” Feldstein tells the Kan public broadcaster. “Where [the document] came from, why it wasn’t put out in Israel, all of it.”

“Read all my texts [with Urich]. I don’t conceal anything,” Feldstein says, telling the interviewer that if he does, he’ll surely conclude that “other than asking him if I can go pee, he knew everything. Everything. Everything, everything, including everything, including everything.”

The ex-spokesman says he is certain that, by the eve of the document’s publication, Urich had informed the premier of the plan to leak it.

He also cites messages between himself and Urich that appear to reference Netanyahu, including one from Urich that reads: “The boss is pleased.”

Feldstein says that after Bild published the story, he, Urich, and Netanyahu had a conference call to decide on their messaging about it. He says the conversation quickly turned to the question of what the premier knew.

They all agreed to insist – falsely – that the premier had been kept in the dark about the leak, he says, and to emphasize that the military was keeping vital information from the political echelon, he says.