PM’s aide Urich met senior Qatari official in Europe twice in 2024 — report
Urich said to tell police he doesn't remember content of meetings, which were not official government business, or where they took place; PM said to claim he was told nothing about it
Jonatan Urich, a senior aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reportedly met at least twice during the war in Gaza with a senior Qatari official in an unofficial capacity.
According to a Channel 12 report on Wednesday, Urich — a key suspect in the Qatargate scandal — met with Ali al-Thawadi in Europe at least twice in July 2024. Thawadi is a Qatari minister considered a close ally of the ruling emir, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.
One of the meetings was also attended by former Netanyahu adviser Yisrael Einhorn and American lobbyist Jay Footlik, both of whom are also suspects in the Qatargate affair, the report said.
According to Channel 12, Urich claimed during police questioning that he didn’t personally know and had never met Footlik.
The meetings did not pertain to any efforts regarding hostage or ceasefire negotiations, the network added.
The Qatargate affair concerns allegations that Netanyahu’s advisers conducted public relations work for Qatar while they were employed by the Prime Minister’s Office, including by placing pro-Qatar stories in the media. Urich also faces charges in connection with a 2024 leak of classified documents.
Urich claims not to remember contents of meetings
Urich was questioned by the Israel Police’s Lahav 433 major crimes unit about his alleged dealings with Qatar in May 2025, months after the purported meeting with Thawadi, Einhorn and Footlik occurred.
The television network published a transcript it said was from the May 19 questioning of Urich, in which he was asked about the contents of his meeting with Thawadi.
Urich, according to the transcript, told the police, “I don’t remember meetings in which we presented [ideas for public relations initiatives].”
Pushed on the subject, Urich repeated, “I don’t remember what happened in the meeting,” and said, “I don’t know him personally” — apparently referring to Thawadi, according to the transcript quoted by Channel 12.
The police interrogator was said to note then that “Shin,” a senior Mossad official, had stated that there had been two meetings between Urich and Thawadi.
“I barely remember one,” Urich responded. He then said he didn’t remember whether the meetings had taken place in London or in Paris.
The detective then inquired, “Was there one in Germany?” to which Urich amended that the meetings had “perhaps” been in Germany.
“London, Paris, or Germany, that’s what I think,” said the prime minister’s aide.
Asked whether the meetings with Thawadi “took place after October 7,” the transcript showed Urich responding, “if you say so.”
Qatar’s answer to Witkoff and Kushner
Thawadi, Channel 12 noted, is a close confidant and adviser to both the emir and prime minister of Qatar. The network likened his importance to the roles filled by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner for US President Donald Trump.
Thawadi held the “Israel portfolio” during Israel’s two-year war with Hamas in Gaza, and was Qatar’s point man during hostage negotiations. In that role, he met several times with his Israeli counterpart Ron Dermer.
He was also present in the Oval Office during a September 2025 meeting between Trump and Netanyahu in which Trump made the Israeli leader phone his Qatari counterpart, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani, to apologize for an Israeli strike targeting Hamas officials in Qatar, which failed.
Despite Urich having apparently met at least twice with Thawadi, one of the most powerful men in Qatar, the report noted that Netanyahu alleged in his own testimony in the affair that Urich had never approached him about Qatar or updated him about his business meetings and dealings with Qatari officials.
The Channel 12 report comes days after a separate story alleging that Urich used ChatGPT to come up with ideas for a pro-Qatar messaging campaign in 2024, almost a year into the war in Gaza.
According to Channel 12, Urich initially told police investigators that he had “no connection” to a pro-Qatar campaign emanating from the Prime Minister’s Office. He called such a campaign “unacceptable.”
Police then reportedly confronted Urich with his ChatGPT history from September 2024, which showed multiple occasions in which he asked the OpenAI chatbot to build a “strategic plan to change global awareness” of Qatar’s image. The report added that Urich asked for messaging targeted toward three audiences: the Israeli public, Jewish communities abroad, and thought leaders in the US.
In parallel with the Channel 12 report, Netanyahu insisted once again in an interview with the Kan public broadcaster on Wednesday evening that Urich never attended security meetings or received security briefings while working in the Prime Minister’s Office.
“I can tell you one thing: Jonatan Urich was not present at a single security meeting, not a single security briefing, because he had no security information… He was outside,” the prime minister said in response to interviewer Ayala Hasson asking what he knows about Urich’s connection to the powerful Gulf country.
Asked whether he questioned Urich about any ties to Qatar during the war, Netanyahu pointed out that he has been prohibited from speaking with the aide by legal restrictions (Urich has been back at the PMO working with Netanyahu for several months now after courts allowed his return), and then described the allegations against him as politically motivated, comparing them to his own corruption trial.
‘Gravest case of treason in Israeli history’
The latest damning reports regarding Urich’s association with Qatari officials were met with anger and demands for clarification by Netanyahu’s political rivals.
Yashar chair and election frontrunner Gadi Eisenkot denounced the prime minister’s deafening silence over the affair, claiming it indicated his “full complicity in Urich’s actions.”
“The details emerging in recent days illustrate just how deep and rotten the failure is,” Eisenkot charged, noting that “the man closest to the prime minister” is already alleged to have endangered a highly sensitive intelligence source in the Bild leak affair.
Urich, he went on, also “worked in the service of Qatar, during wartime, from the office of the prime minister of Israel. All this, during the toughest war in our history, which began with the gravest failure we have ever known, at a time when our finest sons and daughters were laying down their lives” in the defense of Israel.
“Netanyahu’s pathetic excuses of ‘I didn’t know,’ and his fairy tales that ‘they didn’t wake me up’ [on October 7] fool no one,” Eisenkot continued.
“Netanyahu abandoned Israel’s security and desecrated the Holy of Holies,” the Yashar leader charged, referring to the inner sanctum at the Prime Minister’s Office.
“The people of Israel will put an end to this in 13 days at the ballot box, and will elect honest, responsible, and worthy leadership,” Eisenkot declared. “I will always act solely in Israel’s national interests. I commit to this.”
B’Yachad party chair and former prime minister Naftali Bennett declared the Qatargate affair to be “the gravest case of treason in Israeli history.”
“Even now a Qatari agent remains installed in the Prime Minister’s Office,” Bennett charged, “yet Netanyahu remains unable to expel him and order a criminal probe against him.”
Democrats chair Yair Golan likewise accused Urich of treason, and said the entire affair should have the Israeli public questioning “what is Netanyahu so afraid will be exposed? What is he himself hiding?
“The suspicions in this affair strike at the very heart of national security. We are dealing with suspected treason against the citizens of Israel, IDF soldiers, and the hostages abandoned in captivity,” Golan fumed.
Suspects said to meet with Qatari officials as far back as 2022
Separately on Wednesday, the Haaretz daily published what it said were new details about Urich and Einhorn’s 2022 campaign to boost Qatar’s image ahead of the FIFA World Cup.
The newspaper reported in November 2024 that the pair used their PR firm Perception to build a public relations campaign portraying the Gulf state as a paragon of peace and stability in order to draw Jewish tourists there for the World Cup.
The pair’s suggestions reportedly included Doha highlighting its role as a mediator in conflicts between Israel and Gaza and condemning global terrorism.
The newspaper reported on Wednesday night that while the pair worked on the PR campaign, Urich and Einhorn met with Qatari representatives in Europe ahead of the World Cup.
Other Israelis were also present at the meeting, the report said, and the talks did not only focus on the soccer championship but on broader ideas for collaboration.
Some ideas floated at the meeting included the creation of an international media company and a virtual currency for Qatar, Haaretz reported.
According to the report, police were probing whether a senior Qatari official “who held a key role in organizing the World Cup” was present for the 2022 meeting.
Thawadi and his brother, Hassan al-Thawadi, were both heavily involved in acquiring and orchestrating the 2022 World Cup, although the Haaretz report did not indicate that either of them was the official in question.
Nava Freiberg contributed to this report.