Netanyahu's office investigations: What we know so far - explainer

Case No. 1: Obtaining and leaking top-secret documents

The first and most serious investigation involves alleged leaking of state secrets for political gain. Reports on the investigation first broke on November 3.

According to information permitted for publication since then by Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court Chief Justice Menachem Mizrahi, a spokesperson for Netanyahu is under suspicion of obtaining top-secret documents, altering them, and then leaking them to foreign media to stave off public pressure to go through with a hostage deal that could potentially have destabilized the government due to the opposition of its far-right members to some of the concessions it entailed.

The investigation is being led by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency). The spokesperson, Eliezer Feldstein, has been under arrest for more than a week and was prevented from meeting with a lawyer until recently.

Another four individuals, who are security officials, were arrested and interrogated as well. One of them was released from custody last week, and three others remained in custody. The security officials are said to belong to an IDF Intelligence Corps unit that is responsible for information security.

On Sunday, Mizrahi’s deputy, Judge Dorit Saban Noy, extended Feldstein’s custody until Wednesday.

The documents in question were not published. They are widely believed to be linked to two publications since early September: the Bild in Germany and the Jewish Chronicle in the UK.

According to the Bild, Hamas was intentionally sowing internal division in Israel over the hostage issue and did not intend to go through with a deal.

According to the Jewish Chronicle, hostages may have been smuggled out of the Gaza Strip into Egypt. Netanyahu cited both reports in public statements.

The two reports came out as public pressure against Netanyahu and in favor of a deal peaked, after the bodies of six hostages were located in southern Gaza. They had been executed a few days before.

Netanyahu insisted at the time that as part of a deal, Israel could not compromise on its presence along the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border. He cited the alleged smuggling of hostages across the corridor as proof of this claim.

Security officials said they were not aware of any information supporting the claim, however, and the Jewish Chronicle reporter in question did not provide proof.

Case No. 2: Protocol tampering

The second investigation was officially acknowledged for the first time on November 7. The only information approved for publication, following media reports, was the following: “The Israel Police, Unit 433, is conducting a criminal investigation regarding events at the start of the war, in which a number of overt investigative acts have been taken.”

More information was revealed in the Prime Minister’s Office response to media reports, in which it acknowledged that the investigation was “directed at the Prime Minister’s Office.”

According to several reports, the investigation in question relates to allegations that members of the prime minister’s inner circle tampered with official protocols of national security cabinet meetings and other meetings at the start of the war. One of the “overt investigative acts” was a raid of the Prime Minister’s Office on the evening of November 2, Channel 13 reported.

Yediot Aharonot’s Nadav Eyal reported in July that a “few months prior,” the prime minister’s military secretary at the time, Avi Gil, had notified Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara that security officials had suspected that protocols of cabinet meetings and prime-ministerial phone conversations had been tampered with.

Security officials had found discrepancies between the protocols and the actual content of the conversations, including regarding “sensitive preparation” ahead of a “significant diplomatic occurrence,” the report said.

According to “senior figures in the political system,” some of the war cabinet meetings were moved from the IDF headquarters at the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, where they are recorded, to the Prime Minister’s Office, where they possibly are not, it added.

In response, the Prime Minister’s Office said at the time that Eyal’s report was a “complete lie,” and that whoever is “familiar with the work processes knows that there is no possibility for such an act,” since “all the meetings are recorded and transcribed as required by law, and therefore their content cannot be altered.”

The aforementioned “significant diplomatic occurrence” was connected to the ongoing cases against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, Eyal reported on November 8.

Last November, Haaretz reported that Netanyahu’s chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, had requested classified protocols of national security cabinet meetings from previous years, allegedly to prepare the case that Netanyahu was not to blame for the October 7 massacre. Braverman had also requested that government stenographers provide him with protocols of ongoing national security cabinet meeting protocols, the report said.

Shortly after the report, Deputy Attorney-General Gil Limon demanded in a letter that National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi collect any classified documents that had been exposed not according to protocol. Limon clarified that he was not personally aware of any such documents, but that “claims have been made regarding the disclosure of confidential content from sensitive security discussions,” which were held both during the war and prior to it.

Case No. 3: Blackmail

IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi had received a complaint “a few months ago” that a senior member of Netanyahu’s team had obtained “sensitive personal footage” of a “senior IDF officer,” who until recently had worked in the prime minister’s military secretariat, Channels 11 and 12 reported on November 7. The complaint included the concern that the footage was being used to blackmail the officer to obtain “sensitive information,” the reports said.

The senior member in question was Braverman, Michael Shemesh of KAN News reported Sunday. Braverman denied the claims and threatened to sue Shemesh and KAN News for libel.

It remains unclear whether a police or other investigation has been launched on this issue.

What remains unknown?

Many of the details in the three cases remain classified. Nevertheless, two questions are especially important to understanding the events.

The first is whether the allegations are connected to each other.

Was the alleged blackmailing of the IDF officer in Case No. 3 done to obtain the classified documents in Case No. 1?

Is there a connection between the tampering with classified documents in Case No. 1 to the tampering with classified protocols of Case No. 2?

The answers to these and other possible connections are important in understanding the scope of the actions at the heart of the investigations.

The second and perhaps most important question is whether the actions were committed at Netanyahu’s demand or whether they were initiatives taken by subordinates or other officials.

The cases could develop into criminal indictments, and if the prime minister was involved, he may face new criminal charges – all while he is scheduled to take the witness stand on December 2 in his three ongoing criminal trials on charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.