During the hearing in the Jerusalem District Court on Monday about expanding sessions to five days a week in the long-running trial, chief defense attorney Amit Hadad suggested the judges were treating Netanyahu in a manner similar to Adolf Eichmann, a key architect of the Holocaust who was captured by the Mossad in Argentina in 1960, put on trial in Israel, convicted and executed.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo trial has ever been conducted five days a week, only the Eichmann trial,\u201d Hadad argued, insisting that the proposed schedule was unrealistic.<\/p>\n
He also warned that keeping the bribery charge on the docket would draw out the trial.<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\tBy signing up, you agree to the terms<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIf the bribery charge remains, we\u2019ll have hundreds of witnesses here. There\u2019s no chance we would finish by March 2028,\u201d he said, according to Hebrew media reports.<\/p>\n \t Judge Rivka Friedman-Feldman, one of the three judges on the panel hearing Netanyahu\u2019s case, is slated for mandatory retirement in March 2028. All judges in Israel are forced to retire when they turn 70 years old.<\/p>\n \u201cI told the prime minister we are facing dire straits, I have no way to provide proper defense,\u201d Hadad said, as quoted by the Ynet news outlet.<\/p>\n He further claimed that the schedule would leave no time for holidays, family, or Netanyahu\u2019s personal life, insisting that it would be \u201cimpossible to conduct a trial this way.\u201d<\/p>\n The Eichmann trial is the most famous court proceeding in Israel\u2019s history, and the only time Israel has carried out the death penalty.<\/p>\n The prosecutor in the case, Yehudit Tirosh, concurred that it was unreasonable to hold five hearings a week.<\/p>\n \u201cFive days is a very difficult thing for a prosecution or defense team, close to impossible,\u201d she said, according to Ynet.<\/p>\n She added that the trial\u2019s current intense schedule of four hearings per week has already forced her to ask her team to violate legal limits on working hours.<\/p>\n \t The attempt to increase the number of hearings per week comes over six years into the trial, which began in May 2020. The initial investigation into Netanyahu was opened almost a decade ago, in late 2016.<\/p>\n Netanyahu himself turned up at the court hearing on Monday, despite his attendance not being required, after completing his testimony<\/a> last week following 18 months of hearings. His appearance marked a departure from the near-weekly instances of canceled or curtailed hearings that plagued his testimony, when he frequently cited security concerns as the reason for his absence from the courtroom.<\/p>\n Netanyahu told the court on Monday that Hadad \u201ccalled me and said \u2018this is a catastrophe\u2026 We won\u2019t be able to complete the appropriate preparation, to prepare witnesses and to coordinate with you,’\u201d he said, according to Channel 12.<\/p>\n The prime minister repeated his claim that Hadad and all of his attorneys want to quit the case since it is taking up so much of their personal and professional time, leaving them unable to take other cases.<\/p>\n \t Netanyahu said that his defense team \u201cwon\u2019t give up on a single defense witness. They\u2019re coming with baseless claims and we will refute them,\u201d according to Channel 12.<\/p>\n Netanyahu faces a bribery charge in only one of three cases against him, Case 4000, in which he is also accused of fraud and breach of trust in connection with the relations between the Bezeq telecom firm and the Communications Ministry under Netanyahu.<\/p>\n Known as the Bezeq-Walla case, Case 4000 focuses on allegations that Netanyahu authorized regulatory decisions that financially benefited Bezeq telecommunications giant shareholder Shaul Elovitch to the tune of hundreds of millions of shekels. In return, Netanyahu allegedly received favorable media coverage from the Walla news site owned by Elovitch.<\/p>\n Netanyahu is also on trial for two additional counts of fraud and breach of trust \u2014 in Case 1000, which concerns gifts he allegedly inappropriately received from billionaire benefactors, and in Case 2000, in which he allegedly negotiated to obtain positive media coverage in a newspaper in exchange for curtailing its competitors.<\/p>\n He denies all wrongdoing in each case and claims, without evidence, that the charges were fabricated in an effort to remove him from power.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t The war with Iran has been draining for all of us in Israel. But when I heard about a high casualty incident \u2013 ballistic missile impacts in Arad and Dimona that left nearly 200 people wounded \u2013 I drank a cup of coffee, packed a bag, and headed south.<\/p>\n There, I spoke with Shilgit, the head of an after-school program for underprivileged youth. Standing outside her destroyed center, Shilgit said it was a miracle that no children were hurt and spoke about the community coming together in the hours since.<\/p>\n As a Times of Israel reporter, I\u2019m committed to telling stories of resilience like Shilgit\u2019s. But my colleagues and I can’t do this alone. If you value work like this, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to keep real human reporting like this going.<\/p>\n \u2014 Stav Levaton, military reporter<\/p>\n \t\t\t
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\n\t\tPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s attorney, Amit Hadad, arrives at the Jerusalem District Court, June 29, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel\/Flash90)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/F260629YS19-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seen after a court hearing in his trial at the Jerusalem District Court, June 29, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel\/Flash90)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/F260629YS09-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives for a court hearing in his trial, at the Jerusalem District Court on June 29, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel\/Flash90)<\/p>\n
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