Report: PM’s key aide Urich admitted to receiving hundreds of thousands of shekels from Qatar

Jonatan Urich, a senior aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a key suspect in the Qatargate scandal, has admitted to investigators that he received “hundreds of thousands of shekels” from Qatar, and that he had no moral qualms working for Doha both before and after the Hamas-led October 7 attack, Channel 12 reported Monday, citing police interrogation transcripts.

Asked when he stopped working for the Qataris, Urich said he did not remember, but thought it was “mid-to-late 2024.” Qatar hosted Hamas’s political leadership both before and after the October 7 onslaught. The Qatargate scandal concerns allegations that aides, including Urich, worked in the Prime Minister’s Office while simultaneously doing public relations work for Qatar.

Channel 12 reported last week that Urich traveled to Europe at least twice in 2024 to meet directly with a senior Qatari minister in an “unofficial capacity,” regarding a topic not related to hostage or ceasefire negotiations.

According to the Monday report, Urich told investigators that the work was “not in Israel” and that the project, aimed at improving Qatar’s image, ended after former Netanyahu adviser Yisrael Einhorn, also a suspect in the affair, told him it was over.

Asked how much he had been paid for the Qatar project, Urich said he received “hundreds of thousands of shekels,” but could not give an exact figure.

But in another reported exchange, when investigators told him they had materials showing that he was paid to promote Qatar’s interests after Hamas’s October 7 attack, Urich denied it, saying, “That’s not true.”

When investigators asked whether Netanyahu knew he was being paid to promote Qatar, Urich replied, “I don’t report to the prime minister about the things I do,” adding, “There’s a huge difference between what happens abroad and what happens here.”

Asked whether he had disclosed his work for Qatar to the prime minister, or vice versa, Urich said that, as an outside consultant, he had never been required to do so. He added that a 2022 campaign he worked on to boost Qatar’s image ahead of the FIFA World Cup, which was hosted in the Gulf state, had not stopped him from “attacking Qatar from Israel.”

Investigators then cited Netanyahu’s testimony that there was “no way” Urich was receiving money from Qatar. Urich replied, “That’s between him and me.”

Urich said he would not have worked on the World Cup campaign without the involvement of Maj. Gen. (res.) Yoav “Poli” Mordechai, whom he described as “dear to me,” and former Mossad officials. “I didn’t see a moral problem if these respected people were doing it,” he said.

Mordechai has also been questioned and faced suspicions related to Qatargate. As a result, he was suspended from the Israeli team negotiating a release of the hostages who were then held by Hamas in Gaza.

When investigators asked how he could have continued working for Qatar after the October 7 onslaught, Urich replied, “I didn’t see a conflict here. I don’t see it as a moral problem.”

He added: “I don’t think I did anything immoral or unprofessional.”

Urich was also indicted in June for allegedly transmitting classified information with the intent to harm state security in the so-called Bild affair. Prosecutors sought in vain to ban him from the Prime Minister’s Office for both that and the Qatargate scandal, but Urich continues to work closely with Netanyahu.

Qatar and Israel do not have diplomatic relations, though Doha played a key role as a mediator in talks with Hamas during the war in Gaza and has a close relationship with the US, especially under President Donald Trump.

Further complicating Israel’s relations with the Gulf emirate, for more than a decade, Qatar regularly provided large sums of cash to Gaza, much of which reportedly ended up funding Hamas’s military wing. The payments were publicly encouraged by Netanyahu as a means to prevent a humanitarian disaster in the Strip and to maintain calm.

Bennett: PM must tell public about what’s going on with him and Qatar

Reacting to the report, former prime minister Naftali Bennett, leader of the opposition B’Yachad party, demanded Netanyahu immediately tell the public, “What is going on between you and Qatar.”

Bennett repeated his contention that the affair is the “gravest case of treason in the history of the State of Israel.”

While Israel’s soldiers were fighting a war in Gaza, “inside the ‘holy of holies’ of Israeli security [in the Prime Minister’s Office], a group of agents and traitors were working for an enemy state,” he declared.

He said that Netanyahu must stand up “today, tonight, right now, before the people of Israel [and explain]: What is going on between you and Qatar.”

Bennett has described Qatar as “more dangerous” to Israel than Iran, and has pledged to declare the Gulf emirate an enemy state if his party becomes part of a governing coalition following next week’s election.

The Qatargate scandal has been a hot-button issue during this year’s election campaign, with Netanyahu’s Likud party saying Thursday that the premier would sue his former chief of staff Yoav Horowitz, after the ex-aide, who is now a senior member of Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition Yashar party, said the premier must be considered a “Qatari agent.”

While Netanyahu has testified to police in the ongoing Qatargate probe, he has not been named as a suspect. The premier’s aides have denied wrongdoing.