IDF chief ordered probe into leak of secret documents from military to PM’s office

Further details on the Prime Minister’s Office security documents scandal that have emerged following the lifting of a gag order reveal that IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi ordered an investigation be conducted into the source of the leak of highly sensitive documents to the German Bild tabloid newspaper in September.

Eli Feldstein, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was allegedly behind the leak and has been held in detention since October 27.

The IDF believed that the leak, designed to give the impression that protests demanding the release of hostages from Gaza were strengthening Hamas, was likely to harm war objectives related to the release of the hostages, and even harm security operations against Hamas in Gaza.

After the report was published in Bild, Israeli journalists alerted to the report by Feldstein questioned its authenticity, and so Feldstein then asked the IDF noncommissioned officer who sent him digital versions of the document to provide him with a hard copy.

The officer met with Feldstein and gave him a hard copy of the document, along with two other “highly classified” documents.

Feldstein’s goal in leaking the document to Bild was ostensibly to buttress claims made by Netanyahu about the hostage negotiations, in particular that the intense protests calling for the government to agree to a deal — which intensified greatly in the highly charged days after the murder of six high-profile hostages at the end of August — were strengthening Hamas’s position.

Feldstein also allegedly sought through the leak to have the blame for the failure to reach a hostage release deal placed on Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and not on Netanyahu.