In the midst of a multi-front war, a story about betrayal of secrets dominates the headlines and debates in Israel. At the center of the storm is the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, from whose environment confidential military documents are said to have been placed in foreign media, including the Picture-Newspaper. The aim of the breach is said to have been to thwart a hostage deal with Hamas. The domestic secret service Shin Bet is conducting the investigation together with the army and police. Four suspects were arrested last week.
Although the Israeli media is full of reports, many details of this case remain obscure. The reason: The responsible court has imposed a news blackout, pointing out that in this case there is a “serious threat to national security and a risk to information sources”. This information blockage will only be relaxed gradually. On Sunday evening it became known that the main suspect is a man named Eli Feldstein, who is considered a kind of informal spokesman in Netanyahu's inner circle. The other suspects are said to come from the security apparatus. One of them is now at large again.
If you put the puzzle pieces of the announcements and reports together, the explosive affair began two months ago. On September 1, the army reported that the bodies of six Israeli hostages had been discovered in a tunnel in the Gaza Strip. The abductees had recently been executed with shots in the head by their Hamas tormentors. This discovery of bodies shocked Israel enormously. The demonstrations calling loudly and urgently for an agreement to release the hostages were now held daily. Hundreds of thousands took part.
Useful articles in the foreign press
This put Netanyahu under pressure, whose right-wing partners have always threatened to break up the coalition if any concessions were made to Hamas. The head of government is therefore accused by many quarters of repeatedly torpedoing an agreement in order not to endanger his own power.
Two articles that appeared in foreign media in the first week of September with reference to secret Israeli documents appear to be quite useful in such a strategy. The one published in London initially caused concern Jewish Chronicle caused a stir with a report that Hamas leader Jahia Sinwar was planning to smuggle hostages across the border into Egypt. Appeared shortly afterwards Picture with the headline: “Shudder! This is what the Hamas leader is planning to do with the hostages.” Citing an exclusively obtained document that came directly from Sinwar's computer, it is stated that Hamas has no interest in a quick end to the war, but only wants to “manipulate the international community and torture the hostage families” in order to put pressure on Israel's government .
The army, alarmed by the reports, immediately launched an investigation into the disclosure of the documents in question. The report in Jewish Chronicle quickly proved to be a fake. The weekly newspaper took the article down from its website and the author was fired. For the Picturereport let the army know it was based on an old document written not by Sinwar but “as a recommendation from mid-level Hamas.”
Netanyahu has done his best to distance himself from the incident and the suspect
However, Netanyahu had long since known how to use the two reports. The plan to allegedly smuggle hostages across the border fit perfectly with his argument that the Israeli army should never vacate the so-called Philadelphi Corridor between Gaza and Egypt. The PictureThe head of government reportedly quoted the report a short time later in a cabinet meeting to prove that the blame for the failure of a hostage agreement did not lie with him, but with Hamas alone.
The old question of “Cui bono”, i.e. who is the beneficiary of the leaks and media reports, would then be clarified. However, it is far from clear whether a direct line can be drawn from the suspected spokesman Eli Feldstein to Netanyahu. The prime minister immediately did his best to distance himself from Feldstein and the entire incident. His opponents, on the other hand, are trying to make Netanyahu the focus of further investigations. Opposition leader Jair Lapid explained that he either knew about the case and was therefore an accomplice. Or he doesn't know anything – which proves that he no longer has control of his own shop.
