Top Netanyahu aide Jonatan Urich set to be charged in leaked documents case

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara announced pending criminal charges Sunday against a top aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a senior police official connected to National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, in a series of dramatic moves a day before a controversial government panel is set to consider her firing.

Jonatan Urich, a key adviser to the prime minister, faces charges, pending a hearing, related to allegations that he and another aide extracted classified documents from the military and leaked them to the press.

Possible charges were also announced for Israel Prison Service chief Kobi Yaakobi, a close associate of Ben Gvir, accused of tipping off another senior officer, allegedly in Ben Gvir’s thrall, that he was being investigated for covering up Jewish nationalist violence.

The announcements of pending indictments came as a yearslong, escalating feud between Netanyahu’s government, which accuses Baharav-Miara of thwarting its every move, and the attorney general, who accuses the government of acting unlawfully, appeared to near its apex.

On Monday, a panel created by the government to bypass a procedural hurdle is set to hold a hearing on firing Baharav-Miara after the High Court on Sunday declined to step in to issue an injunction against the move.

There was no clear-cut link between the hearing on Baharav-Miara and her office’s announcement of the pending indictments, but Urich’s attorneys and some in the coalition were quick to claim that the juxtaposition was not coincidental.

Urich allegedly harmed national security

The State Attorney’s Office got the okay from Baharav-Miara’s office Sunday to indict Urich, after which he was informed that he may be charged with security offenses, including transmitting classified information with the intent to harm state security, possession of classified information and destroying evidence.

Prosecutors believe that Urich, together with Eli Feldstein, a former military spokesman for Netanyahu, worked to extract raw, classified information from the IDF military intelligence system, in an affair which has embroiled the Prime Minister’s Office.

The pair is accused of taking a highly classified document ostensibly detailing Hamas’s priorities and tactics in hostage negotiations from the IDF’s military intelligence database and leaking it to Germany’s Bild newspaper.

The document, which pointed to Hamas’s apparent intransigence in hostage release talks, was allegedly used as part of an effort to tamp down pressure for Netanyahu to negotiate for the release of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, and instead sway public opinion in a more favorable direction for the premier. The leak occurred in August 2024, several days after six hostages were murdered by the terror group.

“This was information classified at the highest possible level that was obtained through secret intelligence means, and Urich, by exposing it, may have endangered state security and lives,” the Attorney General’s Office said in a statement to the press.

“The release of classified information by Urich and Feldstein was intended, among other things, to influence public opinion regarding the prime minister, and to shift the discourse at the time regarding the murder of the six hostages in August 2024,” the statement added.

Urich’s lawyers Amit Hadad and Noa Milstein commented that their client “denies all the allegations against him,” adding that he “never possessed and never transmitted a classified document and definitely didn’t harm national security.” They argued that the attorney general’s “baseless” announcement “comes at a timing that isn’t coincidential,” contending that Urich’s “innocence will be proven beyond doubt.”

The announcement was denounced by members of the coalition and the government, with Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi (Likud) saying: “The attorney general, in a temper tantrum, is shooting in all directions, but… she will be brought to task for everything she has done. Start packing, and then [will come] an inquiry into your thuggish and discriminatory conduct.”

Urich, a longtime senior aide to Netanyahu who advises him on media affairs, is also a suspect in the so-called Qatargate affair, which revolves around suspicions that he worked for Netanyahu while doing paid work to improve Qatar’s image in Israel, specifically regarding Doha’s role in the hostage negotiations.

Prisons chief faces breach of trust, obstruction charges

The announcement on Urich came hours after the Attorney General’s Office said it was readying to okay charges against prisons chief Yaakobi on suspicion that he tipped off another cop that the latter was being secretly investigated over concerns that Jewish extremist crime was being ignored to please Ben Gvir.

He faces charges of breach of trust and obstructing an investigation, pending a hearing.

Yaakobi, a Ben Gvir appointee who remains close to the ultranationalist minister, is suspected of informing Avishai Muallem, who headed the police’s investigations and intelligence unit in the West Bank, that he was being investigated over an allegation that he worked to sweep probes into Jewish nationalist violence under the rug.

The case is being handled by the Department for Internal Police Investigations (DIPI) within the State Attorney’s Office.

Late last year, DIPI investigators announced that they suspected Muallem of turning a blind eye to settler violence in hopes of pleasing Ben Gvir, who heads the far-right Otzma Yehudit party.

Muallem is suspected to have repeatedly faked probes into Jewish nationalist attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, creating the appearance of a thorough investigation while letting perpetrators go unpunished.

While the investigation was still under wraps, Yaakobi reportedly informed Muallem over a wiretapped phone call that a probe against him was underway.

Muallem phoned Yaakobi requesting a promotion. Yaakobi told Muallem that a promotion would be impossible, revealing to him that he was under investigation.

Sources in the enforcement agency told the Haaretz daily at the time that the phone call constituted “classic obstruction” and provided them with “conclusive” evidence for an indictment against Yaakobi. He is expected to be charged with obstruction and breach of trust, since the call also suggests he interfered in police appointments.

Yaakobi was summoned for questioning by the DIPI in December, at the time that Muallem was first detained.

Both he and Urich will have an opportunity to present evidence at a hearing with judicial officials before state prosecutors formally charge him.

Reacting to the news of the expected indictment against Yaakobi, Ben Gvir lambasted the attorney general for “filing a political indictment” on the eve of the discussion on her dismissal.

Ben Gvir accused Baharav-Miara of “threatening officers that implement the policy of the elected officials, in order to politicize the law enforcement system and protect the rule of the deep state.”

The far-right minister said he gives “full support” to the prisons chief, “who will of course remain in his position, and will continue to perform as he has until now — with determination, professionalism, without bias, and of course without any extraneous considerations, to the displeasure of the attorney general and her criminal behavior.”

Yaakobi’s lawyer, Uri Korb, said that he “regrets the [attorney general’s] wrong decision,” adding that his client had “no knowledge at all about the existence of the investigation and thus could not have disrupted an investigation that he did not know about.”

In a letter, Yaakobi himself implied that he would resign from his post should he be indicted by the attorney general.

“With the attorney general’s announcement regarding a decision subject to a hearing, I want to emphasize in the clearest way possible — I have faith in the entire [legal] system and am absolutely certain that the case concerning me will be closed once everything is fully clarified within the legal procedure,” Yaakobi wrote.

“At the same time, should a different decision be reached, I will act solely from my deep commitment to the prison service and to the higher mission I have taken upon myself, in accordance with the values of personal example and accountability,” he continued.