\u201c[Netanyahu] is the one who ultimately was behind the leak,\u201d Feldstein said emphatically, adding that he told interrogators the same thing repeatedly after his arrest and eventual indictment over the matter.<\/p>\n
\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/netanyahu2-1024x640-1-640x400.jpg\")
\n\t\tAides Yisrael Einhorn (left) and Jonatan Urich (center) with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2019. (Courtesy\/ File)<\/p>\n
Feldstein made the accusations and raised other controversies he claimed existed within the PMO in a three-part interview aired by Kan between Monday and Wednesday, his first media appearance since his arrest in October 2024 and subsequent indictment over the Bild affair.<\/p>\n
His bombshell allegations have been accompanied by a series of reports in Hebrew media claiming to reveal\u00a0new details on the Qatargate scandal.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu is not currently a suspect in either the intelligence leak or the Qatargate affair, and the PMO has denied Feldstein\u2019s allegations, continuing to insist on the premier\u2019s innocence in both cases.<\/p>\n
But the scandals are creeping closer to the most powerful man in Israel, while he oversees military campaigns and fragile ceasefires with Iran and its armed proxies, and while he prepares for a bruising reelection campaign.<\/p>\n
Feldstein talks<\/p>\n
In a segment of the Feldstein interview that aired Tuesday<\/a>, he alleged that Netanyahu was the one behind the leak of classified intelligence to Bild aimed at swaying the Israeli public\u2019s opinion regarding ongoing hostage negotiations last year.<\/p>\n \t The document in question was an internal Hamas memo purporting to show that the terror group wasn\u2019t interested in the compromises necessary to reach a hostage deal. After it was leaked to Bild, Netanyahu used it to argue that only further military pressure would lead to the release of the hostages.<\/p>\n Media reports later revealed that Bild had seriously distorted the file to serve the interests of the Netanyahu government.<\/p>\n Beyond the document that did not actually prove anything about Hamas\u2019s mindset was the fact that it had been branded as classified by the IDF.<\/p>\n Seeking to get it to the public anyway, despite concerns that an intelligence source in Gaza could be endangered by its release, Feldstein leaked it to an international news outlet, which, unlike Israeli outlets, is not beholden to Israel\u2019s military censor.<\/p>\n While the tactic is not exactly unknown among Israeli government and security officials, the use of a classified military document for suspected political purposes was enough to trigger an investigation.<\/p>\n In the first segment of his Kan interview, Feldstein claimed that Tzachi Braverman, Netanyahu\u2019s chief of staff and longtime confidant, learned of a secret IDF investigation into Feldstein\u2019s leak to Bild months before it was publicized and reassured him in a private conversation that the probe could be quashed.<\/p>\n \t Although Feldstein freely named Braverman in his interview with Kan, Channel 12 reported that he had initially refused to give up his identity during a Shin Bet probe into the leak, telling the agency that he had to \u201cthink about the future,\u201d and that if he revealed his conversation with Braverman, \u201cneither the Shin Bet nor any other body will be able to protect my family or me from being harmed.\u201d<\/p>\n Law enforcement sources told Channel 12 that Feldstein has been a \u201cproblematic witness\u201d whose testimony has shifted over time, though they admitted investigators have little choice but to examine his claims about Braverman and whether they justify probing the chief of staff.<\/p>\n Feldstein also revealed text messages that he said proved he remained deeply involved with Netanyahu\u2019s media operation up until his arrest on October 26, 2024, despite the premier\u2019s attempts to distance himself from the former aide.<\/p>\n While the Bild allegations revolve around uncomfortable questions regarding whether Netanyahu or underlings in his office were attempting to sway public opinion, the Qatargate affair raises even more sinister concerns regarding what else, or who else, might be wagging the dog.<\/p>\n \t WhatsApp messages obtained by the Ynet news site in August revealed that former Netanyahu campaign adviser Yisrael Einhorn had crafted pro-Qatar messages and sent them via WhatsApp to Feldstein. Feldstein then forwarded the messages to Urich, who disseminated the messaging to journalists, in an alleged effort to improve Doha\u2019s image in Israel.<\/p>\n When asked by Kan about the Qatargate affair, Feldstein acknowledged he received payments through a business tied to a foreign agent for Doha but speculated that this was because he had failed a security clearance and could not be paid directly by the PMO. \u201cIs it possible that things I put out served, aided, helped, after-the-fact\u2026 some official in Qatar? It could be,\u201d he told the network, though he insisted he was unaware of any real-time influence.<\/p>\n \u201cThey took me\u2026and they used me,\u201d he said of Urich and Einhorn, who is also being investigated.<\/p>\n Undercutting Feldstein\u2019s claims of ignorance, i24News published on Tuesday what it said were texts showing that Feldstein had been in contact with Jay Footlik \u2014 a foreign agent for Qatar registered in Washington \u2014 praising his work advancing media messaging that suited Doha.<\/p>\n \t The network said that Feldstein passed along the message to Urich, who, in turn, expressed his own approval.<\/p>\n On Sunday, i24 News reported that further correspondence between the suspects showed that they had shared fabricated information attributed to \u201csenior security officials\u201d and \u201csenior American officials\u201d that played up Qatar\u2019s role in negotiations with Hamas while attempting to sideline Egypt, another mediator of ceasefire talks in the Gaza war.<\/p>\n The network also reported that the staffers worked together with a reporter from the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 to massage a news report to fit their messaging.<\/p>\n Allegations about ties between Qatar and Netanyahu\u2019s aides point to uncomfortable questions about Israel\u2019s policies in the fight against Hamas \u2014 decisions that had profound implications for the lives of Israel\u2019s soldiers fighting through Gaza\u2019s cities and the hostages held in tunnels below.<\/p>\n Qatar, the partner and adversary<\/p>\n The possibility that top advisers to the prime minister were working for a foreign power during a war is alarming enough. The fact that the country is Qatar makes the implications of the scandals far more severe.<\/p>\n On the one hand, though Israel and Qatar never had formal diplomatic ties, they established trade relations in 1996. Qatar closed Israel\u2019s trade office in Doha amid regional pressure during the Second Intifada in the early 2000s, but allowed it to reopen in 2005 in the wake of Israel\u2019s 2005 disengagement from Gaza. It closed for good in 2009 after the Operation Cast Lead conflict between Israel and Hamas.<\/p>\n \t Despite tensions, Israeli athletes occasionally competed in Doha, and during the 2022 World Cup, a special arrangement allowed Israeli diplomats in Qatar to assist visiting nationals.<\/p>\n Since the Hamas invasion of southern Israel, Qatar\u2019s skill as a mediator has been key in efforts to free Israeli hostages, broker ceasefires with Hamas, and shape a postwar future for the territory.<\/p>\n At the same time, Doha\u2019s ability to mediate rests on its long-standing ties with Hamas, only one piece of the darker side of its role in the Middle East.<\/p>\n \t In 2012, after Hamas leaders were forced to flee Damascus after siding with anti-regime rebels in Syria, Qatar took them in, stating that the US had requested the move as it would be easier to keep an eye on the terror group if it was based in an allied country. Since 2018, with Israel\u2019s quiet approval and at its\u00a0behest<\/a>, Qatar has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into Gaza \u2014 sustaining both the population and Hamas\u2019s rule.<\/p>\n Qatar also created and funds the Al Jazeera network, banned by\u00a0Israel last year<\/a>\u00a0for incitement to terror, and is accused by the IDF of direct collaboration with Hamas\u00a0based on documents<\/a>\u00a0showing communication and staff ties to terror groups.<\/p>\n \t Israel\u2019s leaders have kept channels open with Doha while repeatedly\u00a0denouncing the country<\/a>\u00a0as a leading \u201cfunder of terror<\/a>\u201d and initiating a range of\u00a0legal and political moves<\/a>\u00a0against it. Netanyahu even reiterated these grievances \u2014 \u201cfrom support for the Muslim Brotherhood to how Israel is portrayed on Al Jazeera to support for anti-Israel sentiment on [US] college campuses<\/p>\n Israel isn\u2019t alone in treating Qatar, at times, as a threat. In 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt did everything short of declaring war on Doha, launching a blockade and demanding that it cut ties to Islamists and terrorists, reduce cooperation with Iran, shutter Al Jazeera, and expel Turkish troops from a base there.<\/p>\n The crisis was resolved through a privately signed agreement in 2021, apparently driven more by exhaustion and pragmatic considerations in Washington than by Qatari concessions \u2014 a dynamic not unlike Israel\u2019s own reluctant present accommodation.<\/p>\n \t Documents seized in Gaza over the course of the war against Hamas and published by Channel 12 purported to shine a light on Qatar\u2019s intensive collaboration with Hamas spanning a number of years, including attempts to thwart regional peace efforts by the US, marginalize Egyptian influence on Gaza, and bolster the roles of Turkey and Iran.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Qataris are the pleasant face of the Muslim Brotherhood,\u201d said Danielle Pletka, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. \u201cThe right thing would be, obviously, for them to be treated like the supporters of terrorism that they are.\u201d<\/p>\n Yoel Guzansky, senior fellow at Israel\u2019s Institute for National Security Studies, warned that Doha seeks \u201ca foothold to influence what happens in Gaza [after the war],\u201d and said that it \u201cis obviously not good for Israel, because where there\u2019s Qatar, there\u2019s Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n Who\u2019s convincing whom?<\/p>\n Nonetheless, throughout the war, Israel showed no consistent preference for Egyptian moderation, allowing Qatar to often take the lead in talks. The presence of people being paid by Doha in Netanyahu\u2019s inner circle, raises troubling questions about how far their influence \u2014 and that of whoever was paying them \u2014 may have gone.<\/p>\n \t Did Urich and Feldstein work to push Netanyahu\u2019s view of Qatar in a more positive direction?\u00a0Did their briefings to Israeli media pave the way for Israel to see Qatar as a partner it can trust in negotiations?\u00a0And given Qatar\u2019s history of support for Islamists and its ties with Iran, did giving Qatar such a central role in talks affect the outcome?<\/p>\n There are more questions as well.<\/p>\n According to Haaretz, shortly after the October 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas, the Foreign Ministry prepared a plan to damage Qatar\u2019s public image. But the plan was blocked by Mossad chief David Barnea, according to the report. Barnea argued that Israel would need Qatar\u2019s mediation to get hostages out of Gaza.<\/p>\n And what of the Israeli government\u2019s attacks in the media against Egypt?<\/p>\n \t Israel\u2019s relationship with Egypt is one of its most important. Though they are often strained, the ties have ensured that no conventional Arab coalition makes war against Israel, and have paved the way for close security and intelligence cooperation against terrorist groups.<\/p>\n Ties have soured during the war. Egypt was unhappy with what it saw as Israeli plans to push Gazans into the Sinai. It also vehemently opposes Israeli control over the Philadelphi Route on the border between Gaza and Egypt.<\/p>\n But it was statements from top Israeli officials that have really angered the Egyptians. Both Netanyahu and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer criticized Egypt publicly in interviews for failing to stop the smuggling of weapons from the Sinai Peninsula into Gaza, with Dermer mentioning Sissi by name.<\/p>\n \t Then came even harsher claims against Egypt.\u00a0The right-wing, pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 in January began airing reports on Egypt allegedly violating the peace agreement between the countries and pouring troops into the Sinai. An organized social media campaign appeared in parallel.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s new US ambassador also pushed the same message. \u201cEgypt is in very serious violation of our peace agreement in the Sinai. This is an issue that is going to come to the fore because it\u2019s not tolerable,\u201d Yechiel Leiter told American Jewish leaders. \u201cWe have bases being built that can only be used for offensive operations, for offensive weapons \u2014 that\u2019s a clear violation.\u201d<\/p>\n \t According to Haaretz, defense officials struggled to understand who was coordinating the reports.<\/p>\n \u201cThey said they could not discount the possibility that Qatari figures were behind the reports in an attempt to undercut Egypt\u2019s status vis-\u00e0-vis the United States in Middle Eastern and Gazan affairs,\u201d according to Haaretz.<\/p>\n It would fit the accusations revealed by the judge in the Qatargate case, who said last week that Urich and Feldstein allegedly placed stories in Israeli media designed to harm Egypt\u2019s image.<\/p>\n The reports damaged the trust between Egypt and Israel. If they came from the two Netanyahu aides, then the pair were actively damaging a strategic relationship between Israel and its oldest Arab partner, one which borders not only Israel but Gaza as well.<\/p>\n \u2018A knife in the heart\u2019<\/p>\n Netanyahu, who has testified in the Qatargate probe, has decried it as a \u201cwitch hunt.\u201d<\/p>\n His opponents, meanwhile, have used it to go after the prime minister. In a statement to the press recently, former prime minister Naftali Bennett, among Netanyahu\u2019s most potent rivals in upcoming elections, called the scandal \u201ca knife in the heart of our heroic soldiers and a knife in the heart of the entire people of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n \t \u201cThree of Netanyahu\u2019s closest advisers were in effect paid agents of Qatar and Hamas at the height of the war, while our soldiers were fighting and being killed by Hamas bullets purchased with Qatari money,\u201d Bennett said, adding that this \u201ccan certainly explain why the Israeli government failed in the ultimate goal it set for itself in the war: the destruction of Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n And it\u2019s no longer only his opponents. While many of Netanyahu\u2019s allies continue to deride the investigation as partisan, cracks are starting to show in the phalanx of government officials that closed ranks around the prime minister. Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli said Wednesday that the Qatargate affair must be fully investigated, in what appeared to be the first time a minister in Netanyahu\u2019s government has publicly backed the ongoing probe.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no way to defend this \u2013 it\u2019s shocking. These matters must be investigated to the fullest,\u201d he told Kan<\/p>\n \t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-34-e1730728318619-640x400.jpeg\")
\n\t\tBild\u2019s September 6, 2024, story citing a document ostensibly found by the IDF on slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar\u2019s computer.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AFP__20230430__33E64ZP__v1__HighRes__IsraelCabinet-640x400.jpg\")
\n\t\tPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) speaks with Cabinet Secretary Tzachi Braverman (R) during a weekly cabinet meeting in the Prime Minister\u2019s Office in Jerusalem on April 30, 2023. (Abir Sultan\/Pool\/AFP)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/F250515AVS14-640x400.jpg\")
<\/a>
\n\t\tEli Feldstein at District Court in Tel Aviv on May 15, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni\/Flash90)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/234333-300x480.jpg\")
\n\t\tBenjamin Netanyahu\u2019s former aide Yisrael Einhorn. (KAN screenshot).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AFP__20250915__74HL3FB__v1__HighRes__QatarArabIslamicPoliticsDiplomacySummit-1-640x400.jpg\")
\n\t\tHigh-rise buildings are pictured in the Doha skyline on September 15, 2025. (Photo by Mahmud HAMS \/ AFP)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/G2xZE0bX0AAgl9e-640x400.jpeg\")
\n\t\tIsraeli negotiator Nitzan Alon (far left) shakes hands with Qatar\u2019s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani in a photo indicating success in the mediated Israel-Hamas negotiations on a Gaza hostage-ceasefire agreement in Sharm el-Sheikh, in the early hours of October 9, 2025. Second from right with back to camera is US special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. (Telegram \/ used in accordance with clause 27a of the copyright law)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AP23288244825109-1-640x400.jpg\")
\n\t\tIn this picture released by the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Iran\u2019s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, left, meets with Ismail Haniyeh, a leader from the Palestinian terror group Hamas, in Doha, Qatar, October 14, 2023. (Iranian Foreign Ministry via AP)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AP25342624656250-1-e1765592044886-640x400.jpg\")
\n\t\tHamas gunmen accompanied by members of the International Committee of the Red Cross head to Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City to search for the remains of the final hostage, December 8, 2025. (AP Photo\/Jehad Alshrafi)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AP25044418127277-640x400.jpg\")
\n\t\tBulldozers with Egyptian and Qatari flags wait to enter Gaza at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, Feb. 13, 2025. (AP\/Mohamed Arafat)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/AFP__20251013__78M84WZ__v1__HighRes__EgyptUsIsraelPalestinianConflictTrump-e1760369099203-640x400.jp.jpeg\")
\n\t\tUS President Donald Trump, left, meets with Egypt\u2019s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi during a summit on Gaza in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, October 13, 2025. (Evan Vucci \/ POOL \/ AFP)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AP_17302568415081-640x400.jpg\")
\n\t\tIn this photo provided by Egypt\u2019s state news agency, MENA, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi salutes as he inspects troops with Minister of Defense Sedki Sobhy, in the Red Sea port city of Suez, Egypt, Sunday, Oct. 29, 2017. (MENA via AP)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AP25142659813836-e1756304782891-640x400.jpg\")
\n\t\tIsraeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter talks with reporters on May 22, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/101010-640x400.jpg\")
\n\t\tFormer prime minister Naftali Bennett gives a video statement on December 23, 2025. (Screen capture\/X)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/F251224YS119-640x400.jpg\")
\n\t\tDiaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli at the Knesset on December 24, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel\/Flash90)<\/p>\n