Netanyahu speaks with aide Urich after year-long ban due to Qatargate probe

Key Qatargate suspect Jonatan Urich and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke for the first time in a year by telephone on Tuesday morning, after restrictions on Urich’s activities expired two days earlier.

The conversation took place before a hearing in the Central District Court, where Judge Ami Kobo rejected a police appeal of the Rishon Lezion Magistrate Court’s decision not to extend the restrictions on Urich, including contacting those connected to the Qatargate affair, such as Netanyahu.

Urich, along with former Netanyahu spokesman Eli Feldstein and ex-campaign adviser Yisrael Einhorn, is accused of taking money to spearhead a public relations campaign to cast Qatar in a positive light for over a year after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, despite the Gulf state’s strong ties to the terror group, and doing so while working in the PMO.

Police, in their initial request for the extension on Urich’s restrictions, had said that allowing him, formerly one of the premier’s closest aides, to resume working in the Prime Minister’s Office would be to allow him to “return to the scene of the crime.”

But Kobo rejected the appeal since, as the lower court pointed out, the police requested the extension after the restrictions had already expired, making it technically and legally impossible for the court to “extend” them.

The judge called the police’s delay in requesting an extension “a failure for which there is no explanation,” and said he would stress this point in his written decision, the Israel Hayom daily reported.

Urich’s lawyers, Amit Hadad and Noa Milstein — both of whom are also representing Netanyahu in his ongoing graft trial — have informed police that Urich intends to return to work at the Prime Minister’s Office as soon as possible.

Urich is suspected of contact with a foreign agent, bribery, fraud and breach of trust, and money laundering.

The Qatargate affair is just one of several scandals roiling the PMO, alongside the leak of classified materials to the Bild newspaper in Germany in summer 2024 allegedly to influence Israeli public opinion about hostage negotiations with Hamas. That affair also involves Urich, Feldstein, and Einhorn.

Netanyahu has received wide backlash over his connection to the Qatar affair – though he denies any knowledge of the PR work by people under his charge. A recent poll found that half of Israelis, including 30 percent of those who voted for the governing coalition, believe working for Qatar while working in the PMO should be considered an act of treason.

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett, considered Netanyahu’s most significant challenger in the election later this year, has said those involved deserve life in prison for having served an “enemy” in wartime, and opposition leaders have denounced the premier over the scandal. At least four ministers in the government have also condemned those involved.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.