Report: Classified intel leaked by PM’s aides harmed efforts to secure a hostage deal

Channel 12 reports that the partially lifted court gag order revealing the probe into the leak of classified intelligence that harmed Israel’s war aims is referring specifically to efforts to release the hostages.

The network says that suspects in the case selectively leaked and twisted Hamas documents obtained by the IDF regarding Hamas’s strategy in the hostage talks.

The leak led to two reports in the German newspaper Bild and the British outlet The Jewish Chronicle regarding Hamas’s strategy nearly identical to points made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in interviews and press conferences shortly beforehand. It includes a claim that Hamas sought to smuggle Israeli hostages out of Gaza through the Philadelphi Corridor.

Netanyahu in July added conditions to an earlier Israeli hostage proposal, demanding that Israel maintain its forces along the Egypt-Gaza border stretch, in what critics claimed was an effort to thwart an agreement with Hamas. While Israel’s security establishment argued against this new demand, the premier was backed by his far-right coalition partners who had threatened to topple the government if the original Israeli proposal was seen through.

In a statement earlier this evening, Netanyahu’s office accused authorities of selective enforcement, noting that leaks to the press by other members of the war cabinet and their aides from meetings about the hostage negotiations have not been investigated.

The statement all but appeared to acknowledge that a leak had in fact taken place, even if Netanyahu’s office has insisted that the suspects currently being probed are not among its employees.

Instead, they appear to have been aides to Netanyahu who were not formally working for his office.