A serious charge was also filed against the defendant, which includes five counts of providing confidential information, obstruction of justice and theft by an authorized person. It is possible that additional indictments will be filed in the case, even if later. The prosecutor’s office will demand that the two be detained until the end of the proceedings – that is, until the verdict. This request will require the approval of the court, and a hearing on the request should take place a long time after the filing of the indictment, according to the judges’ decision.
In the indictment itself it was stated that the document that Feldstein handed over to Bild was not brought to the Prime Minister’s attention since it was found to be irrelevant, in light of more recent documents that were in the possession of the intelligence and were also handed over to the political level. According to the indictment, the “secret information” – the same Hamas document that Feldstein handed over to the “Bild” newspaper – was not brought to the Prime Minister’s attention because, close to receiving it, “up-to-date intelligence information was received, which was examined by the professionals in the Intelligence Division, and was found to be more relevant to the negotiation issue This relevant information was forwarded to the parties who dealt with the negotiation issue as well as to the political level, in the transfer procedure. the documents as usual”.
In addition, the indictment stated that the meetings in which the defendant gave Feldstein the classified information he received took place in a synagogue at the Kirya base in Tel Aviv. Feldstein, for his part, sent Prime Minister Yonatan Urich’s senior advisor a WhatsApp message on June 6, 2024: “A senior officer, my source, Baman, wants to transfer materials with an immediate level of urgency to Rahm (Prime Minister). Psychic material.” Later he sent to Orich: “Don’t answer and don’t call me, what I’m building for you now for the weekend is worth a million dollars.” Immediately after that he sent the following message: “And we need the Prime Minister for that.”
Later, also on June 13 and July 4, attempts were made to pass on secret information to Feldstein, and on August 7, he and the opponent arranged to meet in Kirya. On September 1, as part of the media preparation for the media response to the murder of the abductees, and against the background of Feldstein’s desire to bias the public discourse, he decided to use the classified information he received – and which was delivered to him on June 7, 2024.
When he tried to pass it on to journalist Raviv Golan Mekeshet so that he could publish it, Feldstein realized that the news was rejected by censorship – in light of the fear of revealing classified intelligence information sources in Israel’s possession. Therefore, he turned to Orich to publish the news abroad: “Who do you have to burn something big abroad”, and wrote immediately after: “Something big is brewing”. Urich in response referred the accused to Israel, Shrolik Einhorn, another adviser to Netanyahu, in view of his connections with HaBild.
According to the indictment, Einhorn contacted a reporter from HaBild to publish the news, and Feldstein informed Orich accordingly. Feldstein later asked Einhorn if the document had been published, and informed him that it would be published the next day. The next day, a significant part of the document was indeed published, according to the indictment, along with partial quotes from it. After the publication, Feldstein continued to prepare for the publication of additional articles in the media in Israel about the document, and Urich wrote to him: “Take your time, boss Mebusot.” Feldstein told Netanyahu’s spokesmen, Urich and Ofer Golan: “I collected the documents, they need to be delivered to the boss.” The indictment, we note, does not mention any involvement of Netanyahu.
From the morning there was a demonstration, which was attended by hundreds of people, outside the courthouse, who voiced calls of support for Feldstein and the opposition in the reserves. “Eli is a hero,” shouted some of the protesters, who claim selective enforcement, claims that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself also voiced in regards to cases being investigated in his office.
Among the protestors who came to support the accused was Abigail, a nurse in the reserve. In a conversation with Ynet, she said that “his mental motive was for the benefit of the people of Israel, that the Prime Minister should be aware that things he must know in order to save the people of Israel are not being hidden from him. I believe in his innocence, I believe that the treatment of him is exaggerated, not out of proportion.”
She claimed that her brother is a “political victim”, and added: “It pains me to see this. My brother’s motive is pure, he was in the reserves for over 200 days. He has served in the army for 10 years, after 3 years of service. He does not want applause or fame – but only The welfare of Israel is important to him.”
Ynet learned that yesterday Feldstein spoke with his mother for the second time since he was arrested – and asked that none of his family members come to the support demonstrations, which he heard were about to take place. In recent days, there were internal disagreements in the family about the replacement of Feldstein’s lawyer, Oded Saburai, in preparation for the filing of the indictment. Feldstein chose to stay with the same lawyer.
In the first conversation between the Prime Minister’s spokesman and his family, the details of which were published on Ynet, he claimed that he was interrogated for hours every day, which add up to dozens of hours of interrogation since he was arrested, when he was connected to a polygraph. He told his parents that he was “going through mental and physical torment.” Meanwhile, Advisor to the Prime Minister, Yonatan Urich, contacted the police through his lawyer Amit Hadad, with a request to investigate the leaks from the documents case the secret ones.
According to details that were allowed to be published earlier this week, the counterinsurgent in the reserves made contact with Feldstein, and after he expressed interest in receiving intelligence materials, in June 2024 the counterintelligence forwarded him the “Hamas document” via a social network. According to an investigating officer, the document was taken out of AMAN’s intelligence material system.
On September 1, the IDF announced the murder of the six abductees in the Hamas tunnel in Rafah, which led to increased protests by the families of the abductees and criticism of Netanyahu. The next day, Netanyahu called a press conference and presented a document that apparently originated in Hamas, and which was previously published by News 12, which contained instructions on how to pressure the government to reach a hostage deal.
Apparently, around that press conference, Feldstein informed Netanyahu that he had a similar and more significant document in his hands. According to the suspicion, together with the Prime Minister’s assistants Yonatan Urich and Israel Einhorn, the initiative to publish the document is coming up in order to “influence public opinion in Israel on the issue of the ongoing negotiations regarding the abductees and in particular on the issue of the contribution of the demonstrations to strengthening Hamas”, according to the words of the court. After the censorship rejected its publication In an Israeli newspaper, the initiative arose to publish it in the German “Bild” newspaper, which has close ties with the Prime Minister and with Einhorn.
On September 6, the Bild published the “Hamas document”, which was forwarded to it by the Prime Minister’s Office. The resistance in the reserve who was the source of the document was surprised by the way it was published. Meanwhile, in Israel, journalists began to question the reliability of the document, and Feldstein asked for clarifications from the opponent in the reserves, as well as the original document. Shortly after the publication in Bild, the two met and the opponent handed him the hard copy of the document. The opponent believed that Feldstein was acting on behalf of Prime Minister Netanyahu, and that he was carrying out actions at the Prime Minister’s request. In addition, Feldstein also received two additional, highly classified documents from the opponent, one of which was revealed for the first time on Ynet.
The counter received these documents apparently from the same major, and removed the other two documents from the intelligence information system. Two days after the publication in Bild, on September 8, Netanyahu refers to the publication in the cabinet meeting, announcing that “an official Hamas document has been published that reveals the plan of action His: to sow division within us, to wage psychological warfare on the families of the abductees, to exert internal and external political pressure on the Israeli government, to tear us apart from the inside and continue In the war until a new announcement, until the defeat of Israel.”
Later in the day, the IDF announced the opening of an investigation into the incident of the document being leaked. Initially, the commander of the detainees, Col. G, was appointed to investigate the incident, but later the investigation was transferred by Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi to the Shin Bet.
Participated in the preparation of the news: Gal Ganot, Netael Bandel, Lior Ohana
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