Netanyahu claims scandals plaguing his staff are being manufactured to harm war effort
In video statement, PM accuses media of opening ‘front’ against him after report names his chief of staff as official suspected of blackmailing IDF officer; Braverman rejects claim
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday accused Israeli media of opening a “front” against him alongside Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Iran-backed groups, alleging that investigations into a series of scandals linked to his office were part of an attempt to weaken the nation during wartime.
“Even as I manage the war and battle international attacks from various directions, now we are forced to deal more than before with another front — the media’s fake news,” he said in a pre-recorded message, his second in hours.
In recent weeks, Netanyahu’s aides have faced accusations ranging from mishandling and leaking classified documents to the press, to editing meeting transcripts, to blackmailing a senior military officer. He said the allegations amounted to “a wild and unbridled attack.”
The prime minister’s statement came hours after Tzachi Braverman, who serves as his chief of staff, was reported to be the official suspected of blackmailing an IDF officer to allegedly alter minutes from wartime meetings by threatening him with a sensitive video recording.
Braverman’s name was first reported by the Kan public broadcaster, which also stated that the video in question had been obtained from security cameras in the Prime Minister’s Office and that other PMO employees had been allowed to watch the recording.
In a statement, Braverman denied any such activity, calling the report “false” and “defamatory,” and claiming he had neither collected any such video nor attempted to use it for blackmail purposes: “This is a lie from start to finish, whose aim is to harm me and the Prime Minister’s Office in the middle of a war.”
Within hours of the report, Braverman threatened legal action if Kan did not remove the article and demanded a public apology and NIS 100,000 (approximately $26,700) in damages over its publication.
In his video statement on Sunday evening, Netanyahu said that since the beginning of the war, there has been “a flood of leaks from the national security cabinet, from the war cabinet at the time, and a continuous tsunami of leaks from the negotiating team. These leaks provide vital information to Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, information that endangers the country, endangers our fighters, and endangers the recovery of our hostages.”
He lamented that no investigations have been initiated into those leaks, despite his requests.
“Why? Because the goal is not to protect the security of the state,” Netanyahu alleged. “The goal is to promote an agenda of weakness and concessions, during the war.”
He said that the string of scandals in recent weeks was “an organized hunting expedition designed to harm the country’s leadership and weaken us in the midst of a war.”
“It will not deter me,” Netanyahu promised, adding that he was “more determined than ever to make the right decisions for the benefit of Israel’s security, and I am more determined than ever to lead us to absolute victory.”
Earlier on Sunday, Netanyahu’s office released a letter from Braverman’s lawyer demanding an immediate apology and retraction from Kan political reporter Michael Shemesh and the network’s director general, Golan Yochpaz. The letter called the Kan report “lies, ‘fake news,’ and severe slander, alongside wild incitement in a time of war,” and claimed the outlet had not asked for a response from Braverman before publishing the report.
If Kan did not comply, Braverman’s attorney Oriel Nizri threatened “a series of legal actions” against the outlet and Shemesh.
Sunday’s report came in the wake of several others that said a complaint had been filed several months ago with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi claiming that the PMO was holding, and making inappropriate use of, sensitive footage of an IDF officer.
An unnamed official in Netanyahu’s circle reportedly told Halevi that the officer was in an inappropriate relationship with a female worker in the PMO, though an army probe determined the relationship was not an abuse of power.
According to Channel 13 news, officials in the PMO demanded the woman in question hand over her phone on suspicion of leaking information, but actually used it to extract her private conversations with the IDF officer.
The TV network reported on Saturday evening that police officials have questioned several PMO employees in connection with multiple allegations tied to the office, and gathered testimony from workers during a visit to the office in Jerusalem.
The claims against Braverman come during more than a week of allegations of scandals tied to the PMO over leaks of sensitive information and the alleged theft of top-secret intelligence documents.
Netanyahu’s office has denied all such allegations and slammed the police investigations as a witch hunt. The premier himself has not been accused in any of the investigations.
Last week, the courts made public the existence of an investigation into “events related to the beginning of the war.” Hebrew media indicated the probe was related to a July report on the Ynet news site that said Netanyahu’s former military secretary, Maj. Gen. Avi Gil, had some months before warned the attorney general of efforts to change protocols of security discussions.
In the incident, which appeared to be related to the fresh reports on Sunday, Netanyahu’s aides were thought to have used “sensitive footage” of a military secretariat officer in order to coax him into changing protocols from the night of October 6-7, 2023 — hours before the devastating Hamas attack on southern Israel.
According to Ynet, an attempt was also made to edit minutes of discussions related to Israel’s preparations to appear before the International Court of Justice.
There have reportedly been no arrests made in connection with the alleged attempt to change the official minutes of such discussions, and none, either, over allegations relating to attempted blackmail in order to alter the protocols.
However, four IDF servicemembers and a spokesman for Netanyahu, Eli Feldstein, have been detained as part of a separate investigation into the theft of top-secret army intelligence documents, at least one of which was leaked to the foreign press, possibly for political gain. The Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court said last week that the leak harmed attempts to secure a deal to bring home hostages held by Hamas.
On Sunday, the court extended by four days the detention of Feldstein, who was arrested on October 27. His extended detention will mean he will have been kept in custody for 18 days by the time his current period of detention expires. There will be no further remand extension and Feldstein should be released to house arrest if his interrogation isn’t wrapped up in the next four days, the judge said.
The court also extended the detention of the IDF servicemembers suspected of involvement in the scandal, also by four days.
Last week, the court cleared for publication the identity of Feldstein, a former spokesman for Netanyahu who was arrested as the main suspect in the case. The identities of the IDF officials also arrested in the case remain under a gag order. According to Hebrew media outlets, the four soldiers all serve in an intelligence unit tasked with preventing leaks.
The current scandals are not the first to involve allegations of mishandling records relating to the war. Weeks after the Hamas-led October 7 terror onslaught that started the war, the Haaretz daily reported that Braverman — who has previously admitted to shredding documents at the Prime Minister’s Office — seized classified documents concerning the months leading up to the war, prompting Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara to order National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi to return the documents.
Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.
