Court rules Netanyahu aide can return to work despite indictment over leaked documents

Judge says ‘danger’ of obstruction of justice has faded in two years since incident, says there is no pressing reason to bar Jonatan Urich from contact with prime minister

By Jeremy Sharon

You will receive email alerts from this author.

Manage alert preferences on your profile page

You will no longer receive email alerts from this author.

Manage alert preferences on your profile page

Today, 7:19 pm

Edit

Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter

The Tel Aviv District Court on Thursday rejected a request by the State Attorney’s Office to bar Jonatan Urich, a close aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, from contact with the prime minister following his indictment in the Bild leaked document affair earlier this month.

Judge Ala Masarwa noted that Urich had contact with Netanyahu during the most sensitive periods of the investigation into the affair, and said it is therefore highly problematic to demand at the current stage that Urich be banned from the Prime Minister’s Office and from contact with the prime minister.

“As time goes by, the danger [of obstruction of justice] decreases, especially when nearly two years have passed since the events,” Masarwa wrote.

The ruling means that Urich can now return to work with Netanyahu.

Urich was indicted on June 11 on a charge of transmitting classified information with the intent to harm state security, over his involvement in leaking classified documents to the press. The charge relates to Urich’s role in the leak of a classified document from IDF military intelligence to the Bild newspaper in September 2024, apparently as part of an effort to buttress Netanyahu’s claim that it was Hamas, not the prime minister, that was holding up a deal for the release of hostages held in Gaza.

Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition

by email and never miss our top stories

By signing up, you agree to the terms

The document — an internal Hamas memo obtained by IDF intelligence that ostensibly suggested the terror group was not interested in a hostage deal — was allegedly leaked to the German Bild newspaper in order to bypass Israel’s military censor. The memo was some nine months old when it was leaked, and media reports later indicated that Bild had distorted the file to serve the interests of the Netanyahu government.

The indictment alleged that Urich, together with Netanyahu’s former military affairs spokesman Eli Feldstein, leaked the document they obtained from IDF Military Intelligence NCO Ari Rosenfeld, knowing it was classified and that the military censor had blocked its publication in Israel, “while taking a real risk that critical security interests would be harmed” by the leak.

The day of his indictment, prosecutors requested the court immediately bar Urich from the Prime Minister’s Office and from all security facilities and places where classified documents might be kept, and from contacting anyone involved in the case, until the end of legal proceedings against him. Masarwa rejected the request at the time and said he would rule on it at a later date.

A report last month in Haaretz said that the Shin Bet security agency had quietly reversed its position and allowed Urich to access the Prime Minister’s Office. The shift, described to Haaretz by a source familiar with the matter as “dramatic,” emerged after months of internal discussions between the PMO’s security chief, Alon Haliva, and senior Shin Bet officials. The Shin Bet restrictions were separate from the court-ordered limitations on Urich.

Urich and Feldstein are both also suspects in the so-called Qatargate affair, in which they are alleged to have taken money to spearhead a public relations campaign to cast Qatar in a positive light for over a year after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, despite the Gulf state hosting the terror group.

Both the Bild and Qatargate affairs have become major political liabilities for Netanyahu, sparking accusations from critics regarding alleged conflicts of interest and graft among his closest advisers.

If you’d like to comment, join

The Times of Israel Community.