Prosecutors reportedly intend to charge PM’s chief of staff over 2024 Bild leak affair

Authorities intend to file an indictment against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff for his part in the leak of classified documents to the German Bild newspaper in 2024, Hebrew media outlets reported Monday.

Tzachi Braverman is suspected of holding a clandestine nighttime meeting with the chief suspect in the affair, Eli Feldstein, to inform him that an investigation was being conducted into the leak, and that he could quash it if it was connected to Feldstein.

Feldstein and another key suspect were arrested several days after the purported nighttime meeting and were subsequently indicted on charges of transferring classified documentation, among others, relating to the leak of the documents to Bild.

According to the Hebrew media reports, Braverman appeared for a hearing in the affair last month, after which Justice Ministry officials expressed intent to file an indictment against him for fraud, breach of trust, and obstruction of justice.

State prosecutors already announced earlier that they intended to indict Braverman, though charges could not be filed until the hearing. Both Feldstein and Jonatan Urich, a senior media adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have both been charged in the case with transferring classified information with the intent to harm state security.

The pair are accused of leaking the classified information days after six hostages were murdered by Hamas when Israeli troops unknowingly approached the place where they were being held under the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

The document, an internal Hamas memo obtained by IDF intelligence that ostensibly suggested the terror group was not interested in a hostage deal, was allegedly leaked to the German Bild newspaper in order to bypass Israel’s military censor.

The memo was some nine months old when it was leaked, and media reports later indicated that Bild had distorted the file to serve the interests of Netanyahu, with the apparent aim of buttressing his claim that it was Hamas — not him — that was holding up a deal for the release of hostages held in Gaza.

There was no comment on Monday’s reports from the State Attorney’s Office or Braverman, who due to the allegations has been unable to take up the post of Israel’s next ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Braverman is also currently under investigation for suspected forgery and fraud over the illegal altering of records in the Prime Minister’s Office from the day of the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led terror onslaught.